Ten years on from the Islamist terrorist assault on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, France will ask: “Are all of us nonetheless Charlie?”
The #JeSuisCharlie hashtag unfold around the globe in January 2015 after brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi stormed the paper’s workplaces killing 11 individuals in retaliation for it printing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
After gunning down a number of of France’s most celebrated journalists and cartoonists, the pair shot lifeless an injured police officer mendacity on the pavement exterior. The murders would mark the primary of three days of terrorist assaults within the French capital: the next day, Amédy Coulibaly shot a trainee police officer earlier than taking hostages and killing 4 Jewish victims – three customers and a member of workers – on the Hyper Cacher kosher grocery store on 9 January.
All three gunmen died in separate police shootouts on 9 January.
On the 2020 trial of 14 suspects linked to the Charlie Hebdo assault, Simon Fieschi, the paper’s webmaster, who was the primary particular person shot after the Kouachi brothers entered its workplaces, stated he nonetheless suffered bodily paralysis and was in virtually fixed ache. Fieschi was discovered lifeless, aged 40, in a Paris lodge in October final 12 months.
“I hear us described as those that escaped. I don’t really feel like that. To my information, none of those that have been there that day escaped what occurred,” he stated on the trial.
The three days of killing have been a response to Charlie Hebdo’s publication of caricatures mocking the prophet Muhammad in 2006. On Sunday, Philippe Val, the previous director of Charlie Hebdo, stated he had no regrets over publishing the cartoons.
“I known as a gathering [before publication] of all Charlie’s workers to ask their opinion and if just one hadn’t wished to, we wouldn’t have printed … However I don’t remorse it, it needed to be accomplished, the battle isn’t over, issues aren’t any higher in the present day,” Val informed Le Parisien, including that he had been “residing beneath safety since that day, for 20 years”.
This week’s commemorative Charlie Hebdo, quantity 1694, might be a double version of 32 pages; 300,000 copies might be printed and on sale from Tuesday – a day sooner than typical – for 2 weeks for €5 (£4.16). The newspaper claims to often promote about 50,000 copies per week. Version quantity 1178, which appeared on 14 January 2015 and was known as the “survivors’ version”, bought 8m copies.
The version marking the tenth anniversary of the assaults will centre on Charlie Hebdo’s trademark theme: freedom of expression. In addition to caricatures by main common cartoonists, it’ll characteristic 40 cartoons and caricatures out of 350 despatched in as a part of a world competitors on the theme of faith. Referred to as #LaughingAtGod, the newspaper recommended individuals “draw your anger towards the maintain all religions have in your freedoms”.
It’s going to additionally characteristic an Ifop ballot on “the French and the suitable to caricature, blasphemy and freedom of expression”; carried out in June final 12 months, it confirmed 76% of French individuals requested believed freedom of expression – together with “freedom to caricature” – was a basic proper. Of these polled, 62% stated they accepted of the suitable “to criticise a spiritual perception, image or dogma in an outrageous method”.
Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief, Gérard Biard, stated readers would additionally be capable to uncover the paper’s “admirers … in nations the place they aren’t essentially anticipated”, in addition to a characteristic on atheists.
after publication promotion
The entrance web page stays a intently guarded secret. “We have already got the thought, however it will likely be a shock,” Biard informed Ouest-France newspaper.
On Tuesday night, in a particular broadcast on freedom of speech, France 2 tv will pose the query: “Are all of us nonetheless Charlie?” The programme goals to “decipher the present state of the risk”. In addition to terrorism specialists and Charlie Hebdo journalists, the programme will even embody lecturers and college students to debate problems with secularism and actors, artists and writers.
In October 2020, Samuel Paty, 47, a secondary college trainer who taught geography and historical past, was decapitated by an Islamist terrorist after posing the query “to be or to not be Charlie?” throughout an ethics class.
The earlier month, a Pakistani nationwide, Zaheer Hassan Mahmoud, had attacked and critically injured two individuals with a meat cleaver exterior the previous Charlie Hebdo workplaces. Mahmoud goes on trial for tried homicide in Paris on Monday.
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