[ad_1]
He was already on the authorities’ radar for having endorsed a massacre in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that first published the Muhammad cartoons.
Family and colleagues hold up a photo of Samuel Paty during the ‘Marche Blanche’ in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris, on October 20, 2020, in solidarity after he was beheaded for showing students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad . Image: AFP
FRANCE – A young man who “liked” a gruesome Twitter image showing French teacher Samuel Paty after his murder has been charged with glorifying terrorism, French authorities said Sunday.
Paty was attacked and killed in the street for showing her students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression.
His killer, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee who had lived in France since he was a child, was shot dead by police. Before his death, he posted a photo of the teacher’s severed head on Twitter.
The 22-year-old man charged on Sunday is also of Chechen origin, said the prosecutor for the central city of Blois, where he lives.
He was already on the authorities’ radar for having endorsed a massacre in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo who first published the Mohammed cartoons.
In his house several knives and other weapons were found, the prosecutor Frederic Chevallier.
The man denied being radicalized, Chevallier added.
Since Paty’s murder on October 16, the French authorities have cracked down on radical Islam.
The police have carried out dozens of raids against individuals and organizations suspected of supporting or inciting extremism.
Many Muslims consider representations of the Prophet Muhammad sacrilegious.
But in France, which has a long tradition of satirizing religion, they are seen as a symbol of freedom of expression.
[ad_2]
