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The fatal attack on the satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” was five years ago; now those responsible must face the court. Before the trial began, French President Emmanuel Macron defended the right to blasphemy in his country.
The right to blasphemous statements and manifestations is protected in France by freedom of conscience. Macron said Tuesday during a visit to the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
His role as president is “to protect these freedoms,” Macron said. It is not the job of the French president to judge the editorial decisions of a journalist or an editorial team.
At the start of the trial, “Charlie Hebdo” wants to republish the Muhammad cartoons, which had drawn severe criticism from Muslims. “We will never rest. We will never give up,” backlash leader Laurent Sourisseau alias “Riss” wrote in the online edition on Tuesday.
Starting Wednesday morning, eleven suspects will be held accountable to a jury for “belonging to a terrorist group.” Three other men have been charged in absentia; they are wanted on an international arrest warrant.
The pair of brothers had been shot and killed by the police.
The suspects are said to have supported the Islamist brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, who broke into the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and killed twelve people, including some of France’s most famous cartoonists.
Furthermore, the defendants are said to have supported another Islamist who later killed a policewoman and four customers of a supermarket visited by Jews. The defendants face from prison to life imprisonment. The Kouachi brothers themselves were located and killed by a special police unit after a two-day manhunt.
Mohammed cartoons will appear on the cover of Wednesday’s issue. It will show a dozen cartoons that were first published in 2005 by the Danish daily “Jyllands-Posten” and reprinted by “Charlie Hebdo” in 2006. Many Muslims around the world were provoked by the prints.
Pakistan protests against reissuing of images
The cover of the new edition will also include a drawing of the Prophet by “Charlie Hebdo” cartoonist Jean Cabut, known as “Cabu.” Cabu was among those killed in the attack.
The Pakistani government harshly criticized the reprint of the Mohammed cartoons. Pakistan condemns this “in the strongest way,” it said in a statement posted on Twitter by the Foreign Ministry. The reissue would deliberately hurt “the feelings of billions of Muslims.” This cannot be justified by freedom of the press or freedom of expression.
There are strict laws against blasphemy in Pakistan. Insulting the prophet Muhammad can be punished there with the death penalty.
