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CHARLIE HEBDO

Charlie Hebdo publishes special edition a year after jihadist attack

French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published a special edition Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary of a jihadist attack that wiped out most of its staff, prompting protests from the Vatican over a cover lampooning God.

Published: 6 January 2016 12:51 CET
Charlie Hebdo publishes special edition a year after jihadist attack
Photo: AFP
In typical Charlie Hebdo fashion, the special edition features a bloodstained, bearded God-figure in sandals with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder under the headline: “One year on: the killer is still at large.”
   
The Vatican criticised the cover for failing to “acknowledge or to respect believers' faith in God, regardless of the religion.”
   
“Behind the deceptive flag of uncompromising secularism, the weekly is forgetting once more what religious leaders of every faith unceasingly repeat… using God to justify hatred — is a genuine blasphemy, as Pope Francis has said several times.”
  
The provocative cover is typical of the fiercely-secular publication whose drawings of the Prophet Mohammed drew the fury of Muslims around the world and inspired the bloody attack on its offices on January 7th last year.
   
Eight Charlie staff were gunned down by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi as well as several others in and around the building in the assault, which kickstarted three days of terror in the French capital that would eventually leave 17 dead.
   
The bloodshed stunned a nation that has become a prized target of jihadists and was again plunged into grief in November when 130 people were killed in coordinated attacks around Paris.
 
'Shake up people's ideas' 
 
The attack on Charlie, as well as a Jewish supermarket and police, brought millions into the streets in protest and led to much soul-searching over the country's cherished secularism as well as societal issues such as integration.
   
“It was unthinkable that in France in the 21st century, journalists would be killed by religion,” cartoonist Riss, who lost the use of his right arm in the attack, wrote in the editorial of the special edition.
   
“We saw France as an island of secularism, where it was possible to tell jokes, draw, laugh, without worrying about dogma, fanatics.”
   
In an interview with AFP, he said that with the latest cover, which he drew, he “wanted to go above one religion or another.”
   
“It is the idea of God itself that we, at Charlie, contest. You need to shake up people's ideas or they stay stuck in their positions.”
   
The special edition devotes several pages to the topic of secularism, as well as reflections on the terrifying minutes when the Kouachi brothers burst into an editorial meeting spraying gunfire.
   
In one article on secularism, a cartoon depicts a masked gunman saying: “First kill those who do not pray, it will convince the others that God exists.”
   
In his editorial Riss, wrote that the team was keenly aware of the fact that since publishing images of the Prophet Mohammed, seen as forbidden by many Muslims, “many hoped someone would one day put us in our places.”
   
The attack, claimed by Al-Qaeda's branch in the Arabian Peninsula, was not the first on the publication, which was firebombed in 2011.
   
He said the Charlie team had often thought of death — albeit the economic kind — as the weekly constantly flirted with financial ruin with circulation hovering at 30,000.
   
Ironically, the attack made it one of the best known publications in the world with the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie sweeping the Twitterverse and sales of 7.5 million copies the week after.
 
 'Two idiots in balaclavas'
   
And Charlie has continued to raise ire, refusing self-censorship in the wake of the attacks, working from ultra-secure offices in a top-secret location.
   
When Riss pictured Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler found dead on a Turkish beach this year, under a McDonald's sign in what was intended to be criticism of the consumer society, he was accused of racism.
   
The cartoonist said in his editorial he was often asked how he managed to continue after what had happened.
   
“We want to beat the crap out of those who wanted us to die more than ever.
   
“It is not two little idiots in balaclavas who are going to screw up our life's work. It is not they who will kill Charlie, it is Charlie who will see them die.”
   
However those killed are never far from the minds of the cartoonists.
   
“I ask myself sometimes if I am making the newspaper they would have made. To me, they are no longer there but they are not gone.”

TERRORISM

Charlie Hebdo terror attacks: French court jails accomplices

A Paris court on Wednesday handed jail terms ranging from four years to life to more than a dozen people convicted of helping Islamist gunmen who attacked satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and customers at a Jewish supermarket in January 2015.

Published: 16 December 2020 17:53 CET
Updated: 16 December 2020 23:23 CET
Charlie Hebdo terror attacks: French court jails accomplices
Court sketches of the 14 accused. Photo: AFP

Survivors and family members of the dead sat in silence as the verdicts were read out, which they hailed afterwards as a victory for justice and freedom of speech after a sometimes traumatic trial that revived the horror of the killings.

The editor of Charlie Hebdo Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, who lives under round-the-clock police protection, was also in court to hear the sentencing by a five-member team of magistrates who had listened to evidence against the accused over three months. 

“It's been painful, searing. It's been a stage in our mourning process, necessary and unavoidable,” said a lawyer for Charlie Hebdo, Richard Malka. “I hope it's the start of something else, of an awareness, a wake up call.” 

In the absence of the attackers themselves — all three were killed by security forces in the days after their rampage — French investigators instead focused on accomplices to the men, including their weapon suppliers.

The main accused, Ali Riza Polat, was judged to have known about his friend Amedy Coulibaly's plans to take part in the attacks, and was given a 30-year sentence for complicity, which he immediately said he would appeal.

Another 10 accused were present in court, all men ranging from 29 to 68 years old with prior criminal records but no terror convictions. They were all found guilty on a range of charges.

In all, 13 sentences were handed down, including to two accused who were tried in absentia: Hayat Boumeddiene, the partner of gunman Coulibaly, received a 30-year sentence, while Mohamed Belhoucine, a known Islamic extremist, was handed a life term.

Both of them are presumed to be in Syria and may be dead.

A fourteenth suspect was not sentenced because he was convicted in a separate terror trial earlier this year and is thought to dead. 

'Freedom has last word' 

During the attacks in January 2015, seventeen people were killed over three days, beginning with the massacre of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.

They said they were acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda to avenge Charlie Hebdo's decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, while Coulibaly had sworn loyalty to the Islamic State group.

Coulibaly was responsible for the murder of a French policewoman and a hostage-taking at a Hyper Cacher market in which four Jewish men were killed.

Those shot dead in the Charlie Hebdo office included some of France's most celebrated cartoonists such as Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, 76, Georges Wolinski, 80, and Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, 47.

To mark the start of the trial on September 2, the fiercely anti-religion magazine defiantly republished the prophet cartoons, leading to a fresh violence and protests against France in many Muslim countries.

Three weeks later, a Pakistani man wounded two people outside the magazine's former offices, hacking at them with a cleaver.

On October 16, a young Chechen refugee beheaded teacher Samuel Paty who had showed some of the caricatures to his pupils.

And on October 29, three people were killed when a young Tunisian recently arrived in Europe went on a stabbing spree in a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice.

President Emmanuel Macron's government has introduced legislation to tackle radical Islamist activity in France, a bill that has stirred anger in some Muslim countries.

On the cover of its new issue published before the verdicts, Charlie Hebdo in typically provocative style published a picture of God being led away in a police van with the title “God put in his place”.

“The cycle of violence, which had began in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, will finally be closed,” editor Riss, who was badly injured in the attacks, wrote in an editorial.

“At least from the perspective of criminal law, because from a human one, the consequences will never be erased,,” he added.

'Thanks to justice' 

The Charlie Hebdo killings triggered a global outpouring of solidarity with France under the “I am Charlie” slogan and signalled the start of a wave of Islamist attacks around Europe.

Later that year, in November 2015, Paris was again besieged when Islamist gunmen went on the rampage at the Bataclan concert hall, the national stadium and at a host of bars and restaurants.

A trial of the only surviving gunman and suspected accomplices is expected to start in September next year. 

Christophe Deloire, the head of press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said he welcomed the verdict in court on Wednesday.

“It is proof that violent extremists don't have the last word. Thanks to justice, it is freedom that has the last word,” he wrote on Twitter.

Patrick Klugman, lawyer for the victims at Hyper Cacher, said: “For most of the victims… I believe that they have feeling of having been heard.”

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