ParisDanish newspapers presented a united front on Thursday in solidarity with French satirical week Charlie Hebdo and in defiance of extremists who want to stifle the freedom of the press.
Dailies Jyllands-Posten, Politiken, Berlingske and Information all paid tribute to the victims of Wednesday’s terror attack in Paris that killed 12.
Politiken and Berlingkse both ran front page drawings, with the left-leaning Politiken showing a broken pencil continuing to draw and the right-leaning Berlingske depicting an issue of Charlie Hebdo riddled with bullet holes. Information, like many French newspapers, ran ‘Nous sommes tous Charlie Hebdo’ (We are all Charlie Hebdo), while Jyllands-Posten’s cover was pure black with a quote on “the free world’s united project to protect our democratic society”.
While Politiken, Berlingske and Information all reprinted numerous Charlie Hebdo covers, including the ‘Charia Hebdo’ cover from 2011, Jyllands-Posten did not.
Jyllands-Posten triggered global protests by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. The editor behind those publications said Wednesday that French weekly Charlie Hebdo had "paid the highest price" for defending press freedom.
See also: Charlie Hebdo stood by Danish newspaper
"Charlie Hebdo didn't shut up… and they have now paid the highest price for that," former culture editor Flemming Rose told Jyllands-Posten.
"It sends a shiver down my spine. Thinking about the people in Paris, what they're experiencing now. In addition to shock, I'm not surprised. If you look at what's happened in Europe over the past 10 years, since Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad cartoons were published, time after time there have been threats and even violence," he continued.
Jyllands-Posten reportedly raised security after the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo.
"Here at Jyllands-Posten we live with extensive security measures. There have been a whole raft of incidents concerning Islam and violence" over the past 10 years or so, he said.
Rose commissioned 12 cartoons of the Islamic prophet that were published on September 30, 2005, causing angry and sometimes deadly protests worldwide. The cartoons were reprinted by Charlie Hebdo in 2006.
In 2011, Pakistan-born Chicago resident Tahawwur Hussain Rana was sentenced to 14 years in prison for plotting an aborted attack on Jyllands-Posten and for supporting a banned Pakistani militant group.
In 2012, a Danish court sentenced three Swedish nationals and a Tunisian living in Sweden to 12 years behind bars for committing "terrorism" with a plot to kill Jyllands-Posten staff.
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