A small chain of independent bookstores has decided against selling the latest issue of the Calgary-based Western Standard magazine, which features incendiary cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

"We felt it was deemed offensive by Muslims and that it doesn't serve freedom of expression to flout Muslim sensibilities," Colleen Boschmann, manager of the McNally Robinson store in Calgary, told The Canadian Press.

"We didn't think we would be expressing anything except perhaps the symbolic ... offensive right to express whatever we want," she said, adding the store sells less than a dozen copies of the publication on a monthly basis.

"Basically our policy (is) freedom of expression, yes. But freedom of gratuitous provocation? No."

Despite the furor that has erupted over the images, the publisher of a Calgary-based magazine is defending his decision to reprint the cartoons.

Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant says he expects some newsstands will decide against selling the issue, which was published Monday, but will not be readily available across the country for another 10 days.

The caricatures originally appeared in a Danish newspaper almost six months ago and have caused rioting in the Middle East and controversy around the world.

Levant called the caricatures "innocuous," and said he's "ashamed" that more Canadian media outlets, including CTV, have chosen not to run them.

Most Canadian publications including The Globe and Mail have chosen not to print the cartoons, opting instead to describe the images.

One of the cartoons depicts the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a burning fuse.

Some newspaper editors in Europe and Asia were fired after publishing some of the cartoons, and two editors in Jordan were arrested and charged under the country's press and publications law with insulting religion.

Although Islam forbids depictions of its prophet, "I don't follow Muslim law, I follow Queen Elizabeth's law," Levant, whose conservative magazine is published 24 times a year, told CTV Newsnet.

"I don't follow the Koran, I follow the Canadian Constitution, and there are two key parts to the Canadian constitution I'm relying on: one is freedom of expression and the other is cultural diversity (enshrined in) the Constitution."

'What do they contribute?'

But Mohamed Elmasry, leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress, warned on Sunday that his organization will seek to have charges laid against Levant's publication under Canada's hate laws.

And Tarek Fatah, of the Muslim Canadian Congress, called Levant's decision to publish "totally unnecessary and provocative."

"If the contention of these folks is that people want to see these cartoons, they're available across the Web," Fatah told Newsnet. "So the intention is not to inform the readers about the cartoons, but it is primarily to incite and add fuel to the fire."

Fatah said he believes newspapers have a democratic right to publish the cartoons, but said doing so would only add to the pain felt by Muslims around the world.

"All I ask them is, what do they contribute? What exactly are they trying to achieve out of that? Have they not seen the turmoil that has been caused by the repeated publication of these cartoons?"

Levant, meanwhile, asks why society finds it more acceptable to poke fun at the Christian faith, pointing to a recent cover of Rolling Stone magazine which shows hip hop artist Kanye West made up to look like Jesus.

"Why are we making a special exception for one religion?" asked Levant, who is Jewish.

"I know why. Because Christians, when they're upset, they write a letter to the editor. Radical Muslims, when they're upset, burn down embassies."

Levant said the cartoons won't appear on the cover of the Western Standard, but will be spread across two pages inside and accompanied by a commentary on the controversy.

Calgary's Jewish Free Press printed three of the 12 cartoons on Thursday.

"I never published them to offend their religion," said Richard Bronstein, the publisher. "I published them to make a point, to inform readers that we deserve to see this material and to make up our own minds about the violent reaction to it."

The Jewish Free Press also republished anti-Semitic cartoons previously printed in other newspapers.

Bronstein said he wanted to address a larger issue of respect for all religions, and didn't mean to single out followers of Islam.

"I stand very much behind my point of view, which is that it's not only about offence to Muslims," he said. "There's a lot of material out there which offends other religions. It's not just respect for Islam, it's respect for all religions."

Added Levant: "I'm not Oprah Winfrey. My job is not to bring people together. I'm the publisher of a news magazine and I want my readers to have the right to judge for themselves."

The only other Canadian publication to reprint the cartoons is a University of Prince Edward Island newspaper, although Montreal's Le Devoir published its own editorial cartoon on the uproar.