The debate about whether Western non-Muslims should “provoke” Muslims by drawing Muhammad is flaring up again as this trial begins in France. As always, numerous people are saying that mocking Muhammad is “disrespectful” to Muslims, it’s needlessly “poking the bear,” and the like. What they still don’t realize is that this controversy is really over the question of whether or not the free West, such as it is today, will stand up for the freedom of speech as the foundation of a free society, or surrender to violent intimidation and self-censor in the face of threats. Surrendering on this point will only bring on more intimidation and more threats. But no one seems to mind that. Not yet, anyway.
“‘We Will Never Give Up’: Charlie Hebdo Says Republishing Prophet Cartoon,” Agence France-Presse, September 1, 2020:
French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015, said Tuesday it was republishing hugely controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to mark the start of the trial this week of alleged accomplices in the attack.
“We will never lie down. We will never give up,” its director Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau wrote in an editorial to go with the republication of the cartoons in its latest edition.
Twelve people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the paper’s offices in Paris.
The perpetrators were killed in the wake of the massacre but 14 alleged accomplices in the attacks, which also targeted a Jewish supermarket, will go on trial in Paris on Wednesday.
The cover of the latest Charlie Hebdo issue shows a dozen cartoons first published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005 — and then reprinted by Charlie Hebdo in 2006 — which unleashed a storm of anger across the Muslim world.
In the centre of the cover is a cartoon of the prophet drawn by its cartoonist Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, who lost his life in the massacre.
“All of this, just for that,” the front-page headline says….
“We have often been asked since January 2015 to print other caricatures of Mohammed,” it said.
“We have always refused to do so, not because it is prohibited — the law allows us to do so — but because there was a need for a good reason to do it, a reason which has meaning and which brings something to the debate.”…
“‘We Will Never Give Up’: Charlie Hebdo Says Republishing Prophet Cartoon,” Agence France-Presse, September 1, 2020:
French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015, said Tuesday it was republishing hugely controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to mark the start of the trial this week of alleged accomplices in the attack.
“We will never lie down. We will never give up,” its director Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau wrote in an editorial to go with the republication of the cartoons in its latest edition.
Twelve people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the paper’s offices in Paris.
The perpetrators were killed in the wake of the massacre but 14 alleged accomplices in the attacks, which also targeted a Jewish supermarket, will go on trial in Paris on Wednesday.
The cover of the latest Charlie Hebdo issue shows a dozen cartoons first published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005 — and then reprinted by Charlie Hebdo in 2006 — which unleashed a storm of anger across the Muslim world.
In the centre of the cover is a cartoon of the prophet drawn by its cartoonist Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, who lost his life in the massacre.
“All of this, just for that,” the front-page headline says….
“We have often been asked since January 2015 to print other caricatures of Mohammed,” it said.
“We have always refused to do so, not because it is prohibited — the law allows us to do so — but because there was a need for a good reason to do it, a reason which has meaning and which brings something to the debate.”…
