Pakistan has condemned in the strongest terms the French magazine's decision to re-publish the controversial and offensive sketches Holy Prophet (PBUH).

In a tweet, Foreign Office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said that Charlie Hebdo's decision is a deliberate act to offend the sentiments of billions of Muslims. He further said that this act cannot be justified as an exercise in press freedom or freedom of expression.

"Such actions undermine the global aspirations for peaceful co-existence as well as social and inter-faith harmony," Chaudhry added.

In 2015, twelve people, including some of France’s most famous cartoonists, were killed when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the paper’s offices in Paris.

The assailants were killed, but 14 alleged accomplices, which also targeted a Jewish supermarket, will go on trial in Paris today. The magazine said it was republishing the controversial sketches of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to mark this week’s start of the trial of alleged accomplices to the attack.

The cover of the new issue has a dozen sketches of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), with director Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau writing that they 'we will never lie down. We will never give up'.