A Government charity has been criticised for portraying Christians as Islamaphobic.

In a youth magazine published by the charity Who Cares?, a cartoon strip sows a Muslim girl being pointed at by a boy with a cross around his neck. The boy tells his friend that the girl looks like a terrorist and later says to the girl, “Hey, whatever your name is, what are you hiding under your turban?”

The girl then tells the boy that her “turban” is actually a hijab and is part of her religion “like that cross you wear”, implying that the boy is Christian.

The cartoon was published in Klic!, a quarterly magazine for 8-12 year olds.

Christians and MPs have criticised the cartoon as sending out the wrong message.

Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said, “What about Christian children in care who received this magazine? How will they feel to see themselves mocked as narrow-minded Islamaphobes?”

According to The Daily Mail he said, “It is a clumsy caricature, symptomatic of a culture which says it is OK to bully Christians in the name of diversity.”

Conservative MP Philip Hollobone also criticised the cartoon saying, “I think it is very unfortunate that the lad who is pointing the finger is wearing a cross. You can hardly imagine anyone producing a magazine in which the roles were reversed and it was the Muslim girl behaving badly.”

The chief executive of Who Cares?, Natasha Finlayson, said that the cross was “bling” rather than a symbol of the boy’s faith.