More than 1,000 people in the Muslim Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan protested on Tuesday against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the wake of the attack on Charlie Hebdo in France.

People gathered under the slogan "I love the prophet" for the rally in the impoverished ex-Soviet state's capital Bishkek, lawmaker Tursunbai Bakir Uulu told AFP.

"Why do Western countries allow freedom of speech to become freedom to offend?" Bakir Uulu said.

Protests have taken place across the Muslim world over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that many believers regard as offensive.

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a Mohammed cartoon on its front cover a week after two Islamist gunmen -- claiming they were avenging the publication of previous Mohammed caricatures -- killed 12 people at its office in Paris.

Hundreds of thousands of people on Monday gathered in Chechnya for a state-organised rally against the cartoons.