Major facepalm.

(Reuters) – Germany’s Interior Ministry has postponed at the last minute a poster campaign advertising a hotline aimed at countering radical Islam because of fears it could have incited violence by extremists.

Western governments are keen to avoid exacerbating Muslim anger after a film made in California ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad surfaced on the Internet and ignited violent protests around the world, some of them deadly.

The posters had been due to go up in German cities with large immigrant populations from Friday. They were aimed at those who suspected that a friend or family member might be drifting towards radical Islam.

“With everything that is going on right now, we’re afraid that it wouldn’t take much to trigger more religiously motivated violence,” an interior ministry spokesman said.

“We’re talking specifically about fanatic individuals who could use events they perceive as being Islamophobic as an opportunity to take action.” The spokesman said the ministry had no reason to believe such an attack was imminent.

Protesters angered by the California-made film stormed the German embassy in Sudan on Friday and Berlin withdrew some staff.