France Magazine Attack: They Finally Got Charlie

Was ANYONE surprised that this was the work of Muslims???? Terrorists want to silence people and take away their freedom of speech, thought, and expression. This is horribly sad but I would encourage the magazine to KEEP PUBLISHING THEIR CARTOONS.

Magazine Attacked in Paris Has History of Bold Satire

By Matthew Campbell and Marie Mawad  Jan 7, 2015 7:42 AM PT

Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine where shootings today killed at least 12 people, has a long history of pushing the limits of expression -- and sometimes good taste.

In 2011 it published a special edition called “Charia Hebdo” featuring Muhammad as a “guest editor.” The cover depicted the prophet threatening readers with “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.” Shortly thereafter, Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices were firebombed in an overnight attack that caused no injuries.

Just before today’s attack, the magazine’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts published a cartoon of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi offering wishes of good health for the New Year. And the current cover is on “Submission,” a book released today about a future in which an Islamic France is led by a Muslim president who bans women from the workplace.

In recent weeks, the magazine has had two police officers stationed outside its doors because of terrorist threats, Rocco Contento of the SGP police union told BFM Television.

Founded in its current incarnation in 1992, Charlie Hebdo has skewered politicians, pop stars, and religious fundamentalists of all stripes in its weekly installments of caricatures, interviews, and opinionated essays. Its cartoon covers have included former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn dancing in a red tutu and the late singer Michael Jacksonshown as a skeleton shortly after his death from a drug overdose.

Photographer: Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images

The latest issue of the French satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris on Jan. 7,... Read More

Before Christmas last year, the cover depicted Charlie’s take on a traditional nativity scene -- a spread-eagled Mary giving birth to the baby Jesus. That image currently decorates the magazine’s Twitter profile.

Communion Condom

Though little-known outside France, Charlie Hebdo -- the name means simply Charlie Weekly -- is one of the country’s better-selling political magazines, with an average circulation of about 100,000.

In 2006, it reprinted cartoons of Muhammad originally published by a Danish newspaper, which had prompted sometimes-violent protests because Muslim tradition deems depictions of the prophet to be blasphemous. Islamic organizations sued the magazine for the drawings, a case dismissed by a French court in 2008, according to the Charlie Hebdo website.

Politicians in France, which has Europe’s largest Muslim population, have long understood that the magazine might inflame cultural tensions. During the 2006 controversy, then-presidentJacques Chirac asked media organizations to avoid “provocation” of Muslims. And in 2012 former prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called for restraint when Charlie Hebdo published more cartoons representing Muhammad.

The same year, Agence France-Presse reported that police had interrogated a man who called for the beheading of Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb. He was killed in today’s assault, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, along with three other well-known cartoonists: Cabu, or Jean Cabut; Tignous, or Bernard Verlhac; and Georges Wolinski.

“We are crushed,” said Jean-Pierre Schamber, 77, a regular reader who has lived for 25 years in the Paris neighborhood where the magazine has its offices. “Even if I haven’t always agreed with Charlie, this is very deep.”

The magazine’s writers and owners have long defended their content as free speech and argued that they satirize all major religions. In 2010, a cover showed Pope Benedict XVI giving holy communion with a condom. A 2012 story on gay marriage depicted a ménage-a-trois featuring the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God.

Charlie Hebdo is owned by a holding company, Les Editions Rotatives, controlled by senior staffers. They helped re-found the magazine 11 years after a previous version, which ran from 1969 to 1981, ran out of money and shut down.

(A previous version of this story was corrected to remove reference to the magazine’s editor.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Campbell in London atmcampbell39@bloomberg.net; Marie Mawad in Paris at mmawad1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong atkwong11@bloomberg.net David Rocks