WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

SINCE it was targeted by freedom-hating Islamic State supporters a year ago, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has become a symbol of free speech across the Western world.

But this time, the provocative publication may have gone too far.

In its latest edition, the magazine has published a cartoon on Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach when he drowned on a journey alongside fellow refugees to Greece.

The heartbreaking image of the three-year-old Kurdish boy drew global attention to the plight of Syrian refugees and became a symbol of the global crisis, but now the iconic image has been twisted by stirring cartoonists.

Charlie Hebdo says this drowned baby Syrian refugee would have grown up to sexually harass German women. pic.twitter.com/Atprm0LffW — Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) January 13, 2016

The newspaper has imagined the three-year-old growing up as ... “a groper in Germany”.

Depicting baby Aylan as an adult sex pest is a clear grab at controversy, but even some of the publication’s most enthusiastic supporters have failed to see any funny side of the satirical image.

The drawing is a clear play on the Cologne sexual assault attacks allegedly carried out by a mob of hundreds of men, many of them apparently middle eastern migrants, on New Year’s Eve.

The cartoon appears to suggest that should Aylan have survived he would have carried out such an act. However, it’s more likely the intention was to satirise the attitude held by EU right-wingers that all refugees are criminals.

It takes getting past the initial shock and outrage that the satirical meaning becomes clear to the reader, and for many, that’s too much to ask.

People have begun tweeting with the hashtag #weareNOTcharlie in protest of the offending drawing — a play on the supportive social media campaign #JeSuisCharlie or #iamcharlie that quickly spread after the 2015 shooting at the magazine’s Paris offices where 12 people were gunned down by terrorists.

The always controversial magazine will likely welcome criticism around its latest offering.

Its deliberately offensive depictions of sacred figures like Mohammed and God are said to be the inspiration of the terrorists who targeted its headquarters, and its editors and cartoonists are well accustomed to death threats and abuse.

Last week, on the twelve month anniversary of the shootings, the satirical title released a new front cover featuring God with a Kalashnikov. It showed a bearded man with the weapon slung over the back of his shoulder with the caption “L’Assassin court roujous” which is translated as “The assassin is always out there”.

In the wake of the killing of eight of its staff, two policemen and two other men on January 7, 2015, Charlie Hebdo became one of the best-known publications in the world and the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie flashed across social networks.

Hooded gunmen Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother Said Kouachi, 34, were hunted down and later killed.

The newspaper was held up as a symbol of freedom of expression and an astonishing 7.5 million copies were sold of the first issue produced by its surviving staff just a week after the attack.

A month before the attack, Charlie Hebdo was close to shutting down as sales had dipped below 30,000.