Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the center of the Chechen capital Grozny on Monday, holding signs that read "Hands off our beloved prophet" and chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).

Russia's interior ministry reported that over 800,000 people had attended the government-sponsored rally which was broadcast live on state television.

"This is a protest against those who support the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad," Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Kremlin leader of the predominantly Muslim region, told the crowds.

"If needed, we are ready to die to stop anyone who thinks that you can irresponsibly defile the name of the prophet," he added.

A Muhammad caricature featured on the cover of French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" last week, after a shooting at the publication's Paris offices left 12 people dead. The perpetrators claimed the attack was to avenge the prophet. Kadyrov criticized the French government for defending Charlie Hebdo's right to publish the cartoons, and condemned other publications that reprinted the images.

"You and I see how European journalists and politicians under false slogans about free speech and democracy proclaim the freedom to be vulgar, rude and insult the religious feelings of hundreds of millions of believers," he said. "We say firmly that we will never allow anyone to go unpunished for insulting the name of the Prophet and our religion."

Kadyrov has been accused of carrying out human rights abuses in Chechnya, which he's ruled with an iron fist since being installed by President Vladimir Putin in 2007. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the two wars Russia waged against Chechnya in the 1990s, and the province is still plagued by an Islamist insurgency.

Kadyrov, who depends on Moscow's support to maintain stability, has used rallies in the past to demonstrate his loyalty to Putin. Some citizens, however, have reported being bullied into showing up.

Protests in the Muslim world

Hundreds of thousands of Chechens demonstrated against Charlie Hebdo in Grozny

The Grozny rally was the latest of several demonstrations in Muslim countries against Charlie Hebdo's cartoons. Around 15,000 people joined a similar rally in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia on Saturday, according to Russian news agencies.

While Moscow offered its condolences to France after the shootings, several Russian publications were warned against reprinting the Muhammad cartoons.

Russian communications oversight agency, Roskomnadzor, said publishing the caricatures could be qualified as "inciting ethnic and religious hatred" and punished under anti-extremism laws.

"Roskomnadzor calls on all national media to choose other methods of expressing their solidarity with their tragically killed French colleagues, rather than inflaming sectarian tensions in Russian society," it said in a statement.

nm/bw (Reuters, AP, AFP)