Fire Guts Headquarters of French Satiric Weekly

PARIS—The offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were gutted by fire Tuesday night, officials said, hours before a special issue of the weekly that features the prophet Muhammad appeared on newsstands.

The fire, which the police said officials believe was started by a Molotov cocktail, caused no injuries. The incident has spurred debate over press freedom and religious tolerance in France, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim population.

France has detailed rules on the separation of state and religion. In recent years, authorities have sought to curb some outward expressions of Muslim identity. A law came into force over the summer that bans wearing most face-covering garments, such as burqas, in public.


Charlie Hebdo, known in France for its biting humor, had dubbed its latest issue "Shariah Weekly," in a reference to the Islamic legal code, and put a caricature of the prophet Muhammad on the front page, quoting him promising "100 lashes if you don't die from laughter."

The front cover, which flaunts strict Islamic laws on the representation of the prophet, was widely debated on social networks earlier this week when early editions appeared on the Internet. Several journalists at the paper received anonymous threats and Charlie Hebdo's website was subsequently hacked, Interior Minister Claude Guéant said on BFM, a 24-hour television news channel.

Mr. Guéant said police were looking into all leads as part of their investigation into the alleged arson, including the possibility that the fire was an act of terrorism. "The threats [journalists] received means that we can't ignore this lead," Mr. Guéant said.

French authorities were quick to back the satirical magazine. "There is no democracy without irreverence," said Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand, adding that the alleged attack was "intolerable."

However, some groups questioned Charlie Hebdo's decision to publish an image of the prophet Muhammad.

"In a climate of European religious tension and fear of Islam, to create an amalgamation of all types of caricatures of the Islamic faith is highly regrettable," the Grand Mosque of Paris said in a statement.

The newspaper said its cover story was a reaction to the victory of an Islamic party, Nahda, in Tunisia's elections of a constitutional assembly last month, and that Charlie Hebdo wouldn't deviate from its "free-thinking" editorial line after the fire.

Charlie Hebdo has often put France's secular dogma to the test. In 2006 the paper reprinted a series of images of Muhammad that had appeared in a Danish magazine a year before. A year later, the paper published a picture of Muhammad crying, with the tagline "It's hard to be loved by idiots." The Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France filed charges of slander against the paper in relation to the Danish images, but a French court cleared the paper of the charges.

In 2008, Charlie Hebdo was the center of a controversy after it fired a cartoonist who wrote an allegedly anti-Semitic drawing and article about President Nicolas Sarkozy's son Jean, which the paper published. A court later ordered the paper to pay the cartoonist compensation for unfair dismissal. The cartoonist denied his drawing was anti-Semitic.

Charlie Hebdo said it had received several offers to accommodate its staff. The mayor of Paris also said he would help the paper find a new office.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577013350739279624.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

Jihadists celebrate attack on French satirical paper

WASHINGTON: Jihadist groups on Internet forums Thursday celebrated an attack on the offices of a French satirical newspaper, and warned the act could be repeated, the SITE monitoring group said.

In one forum, a “jihadist argued that the attack demonstrates the dedication of Muslims to their faith,” said the monitoring service.

“They can repeat it at any moment, ‘especially as unemployment has spread and nothing preoccupies the Muslim youths,’” said the service in a translation of the online posts.

The newspaper Charlie Hebdo had renamed its weekly newspaper Charia (Sharia) Hebdo for a special Arab Spring edition and featured a front-page cartoon of the prophet saying: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter!”

Their offices in Paris were destroyed in a suspected firebomb attack early Wednesday.

The jihadist groups urged Muslims in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia “to protest and demand that their current leaders threaten to sever ties with France” if the publishing license for Charlie Hebdo is not revoked, and that similar acts against Islam be “criminalized,” said SITE.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/04/jidhadists-celebrate-attack-on-french-satirical-paper.html

 

http://charliehebdo.wordpress.com/

 

So do you think they should preemptively bow to the Islamist bullies who want to destroy freedom of speech?

Here is a bit more on the history of Charlie Hebdo, a far-left satirical magazine, from the BBC. Please pay special attention to the last paragraph.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15551998

Charlie Hebdo and its place in French journalism


Charlie Hebdo's staff say there is nothing unusually provocative about the Charia Hebdo issue

Charlie Hebdo is part of a venerable tradition in French journalism going back to the scandal sheets that denounced Marie-Antoinette in the run-up to the French Revolution.

The tradition combines left-wing radicalism with a provocative scurrility that often borders on the obscene.

Back in the 18th Century, the target was the royal family, and the rumour-mongers wrought havoc with tales - often illustrated - of sexual antics and corruption at the court at Versailles.

Nowadays there are new dragons to slay: politicians, the police, bankers and religion. Satire, rather than outright fabrication, is the weapon of choice.

But that same spirit of insolence that once took on the ancien regime - part ribaldry, part political self-promotion - is still very much on the scene.

Charlie Hebdo is a prime exponent.

Its decision to mock the Prophet Muhammad may be called courageously principled or dangerously irresponsible. What is undeniable is that it is entirely consistent with its historic raison d'etre.


French police have been among the many targets of Charlie Hebdo
Urge to challenge

As a newspaper, Charlie Hebdo suffers from constant comparison with its better-known and more successful rival, Le Canard Enchaine.

Both are animated by the same urge to challenge the powers-that-be.

But if Le Canard is all about scoops and unreported secrets, Charlie is both cruder and crueller - deploying a melange of cartoons and an often vicious polemical wit.

True to its position on the far left of French politics, Charlie Hebdo's past is full of splits and ideological betrayals.

One long-standing editor resigned a couple of years ago after a row about anti-semitism.

Another odd feature typical of the French far left is that most of the staff - cartoonists and writers alike - go by single-name noms de plume. Heading the current team, for example, are two men referred to universally as Charb and Riss, even though everyone knows their real names.

The paper's origins lie in another satirical publication called Hara-Kiri which made a name for itself in the 1960s.

In 1970 came the famous moment of Charlie's creation. Two dramatic events were dominating the news: a terrible fire at a discotheque which killed more than 100 people; and the death of former President Gen Charles de Gaulle.

Hara-Kiri led its edition with a headline mocking the General's death: "Bal tragique a Colombey - un mort", meaning "Tragic dance at Colombey [de Gaulle's home] - one dead."

The subsequent scandal led to Hara-Kiri being banned. To which its journalists promptly responded by setting up a new weekly - Charlie Hebdo.

The Charlie was not an irreverent reference to Charles de Gaulle, but to the fact that originally it also re-printed the Charlie Brown cartoon from the United States.

'Nothing unusually provocative'
The paper has never sold in enormous numbers - and for 10 years from 1981, it ceased publication for lack of resources.

But with its garish front-page cartoons and incendiary headlines, it is an unmissable staple of newspaper kiosks and railway station booksellers.

Drawing on France's strong tradition of bandes dessinees [comic strips], cartoons and caricatures are Charlie-Hebdo's defining feature. Over the years, it has printed examples which make today's representations of Muhammad look like illustrations from a children's book.

Police would be shown holding the dripping heads of immigrants; there would be masturbating nuns; popes wearing condoms - anything to make a point.

So today when the paper's staff say there is nothing unusually provocative about the Charia Hebdo issue - with its front-page cartoon of 'guest-editor' Muhammad -- they are being perfectly truthful.

The only difference is their choice of target.

------------------------------------------------------------------

So whatever you think about how tasteless or provocative their stuff is - they have been doing it for DECADES, and the only ones who take to violence against them because of it are...guess who.

 

Did you read the last paragraph?

So, because certain people do not have a sense of humor, are intolerant and violent, one should not be allowed to make fun of them?

The threat of violence should not define how far humor and satire can go. It does in large parts of the world (especially the Arab world), but not in the free, Western world.

Certain people are trying to change that, but they will not succeed.

 

Catholic Christians could have said (and possibly/probably did) that putting up a picture of the pope wearing a condom or pictures of masturbating nuns aren't "helping the situation" because "religious relations are a complex thing".

The French police could have said that putting up a picture of the French police with cut-off heads of immigrants is not "helping the situation" because "race relations are a complex thing".

Strangely, none of the other targets of this magazine's satirical efforts took to violence, though.

It proves a point - that the people who are targeted by the particular piece of satire are - predictably - just as bad as the satirical strip made it seem.

And in the case of this magazine - unlike the case of Westergaard - the typical people who want to relativize this cannot even claim that they singled out the Islamists...this satirical magazine has been doing this to everyone for decades - Christians, Jews, Muslims, government, police, men, women, Germans, Italians, French, Americans...

 

Free speech is "imposed" by 30 dirt-poor cartoonists "against" a group of millions of people (if you say it was directed only at Islamists) or "against" 1.5 billion people (if you say it was directed at Muslims) and either of those groups are "too small, disempowered or detached to combat it by conventional means"?

So after having received hundreds of death threats because of a small cartoon, what kind of security measures do you think these poor cartoonists should have employed?

Some posts by people here just make you scratch your head.

 

Let me show you some more cartoons by Charlie Hebdo from the past.







Those are some of the more tame ones.

And as to your statement: Is it intended to say "it's ok that they got firebombed because they should have known it could cause problems for them if they exercise their right to free speech"?

 

Found this great article in the Houston Chronicle - this guy is saying it very well.

http://blog.chron.com/partisangridl...uhamed-cartoon-time-reporter-defends-bombers/

Satirical French newspaper firebombed after printing Muhamed cartoon; Time reporter defends bombers

Yesterday, satirical French newspaper Charlie Hedbo published an edition guest edited by “the Prophet Muhammad” and was promptly firebombed. Here’s the cover that “provoked” the attack:



It should go without saying that whether the publication is funny, juvenile, both or neither is completely irrelevant. Nobody has a right not to be offended, including religious nuts.

But not if you ask Bruce Crumley, Time Magazine’s Paris Bureau Chief. In a piece called “Firebombed French Paper Is No Free Speech Martyr,” Crumley argues that since the paper knew before it published that it was likely to provoke extremist anger, it has only itself to blame.

Oh sure, freedom is great, he says, but haven’t we already made this point? Aren’t we Westerners just rubbing it in now? Aren’t we beyond lecturing extremists about freedom of speech and religion at this point?

It simply cannot be that in 2011 Time’s Paris Bureau Chief is an advocate for the heckler’s veto and a lawyer for cowardice. His post must be motivated by something else — traffic bait, maybe.

As Crumley undoubtedly knows, a publication’s motive for publishing offensive cartoons, words and anything else a free person in a free society chooses to publish is completely beside the point. Nobody — nobody — has the right to be free from offense.

Suppose Charlie Hebdo intended to offend Islamist extremists. So what? Is Crumley really arguing that it’s better to just avoid the whole topic because if you make fun of Muhammad, they might get mad? They’re already mad: They’re extremists. Their beliefs are infantile, superstitious and absurd. They’re begging to be made fun of.

Is his argument that it’s unwise at this point to publish material that might cause offense to crazies because they already know that secularists disagree with them? Is he really saying that commentators should limit themselves to the publication of non-offensive material? There’s a word for that kind of satire: Boring.

Crumley is right about one thing, though: There are lessons to be learned here.

Here’s one: You have no right to respond to ideas with violence. Use your big boy words.

If you’d like for your government to enact a law preventing depictions of Muhammad in a way that subjects him to ridicule, move to Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan. Those countries are heavy on prohibitions against speech but, judging by the number of public lashings, hangings, beheadings and stonings, fairly light on satire.

If you choose to stay in the West, here’s what you have to do: Dab your tears, change your diaper and learn to live with being offended like the rest of us. We don’t search for the line of offense so that we can’t cross it. And we don’t avoid controversy because it’s likely to be…what’s the word?…controversial.

If we did, who would decide what is and isn’t offensive? Would Crumley prefer Western democracies set up boards of robed and silly hat-wearing clerics to issue fatwas declaring this cartoon offensive but that one kosher?Taking Crumley’s make nice advice invites fanatics to draw the line farther away from things that may truly be offensive and closer to things we take for granted.

The risk in expressing stupid ideas or exercising poor judgment should be, as Crumley is now discovering, suffering criticsm, not violence. The response to fanatic vilolence should be more, not less, satire. Sorry Bruce, the time for bleating about how we’re past all of this provocation is when it no longer provokes a freaking firebombing.