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It was on Friday that 47-year-old history teacher Samuel Paty was attacked and beheaded on an open street in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Apparently the motive was to show some of the Muhammad cartoons from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to a group of high school students, as the basis for a discussion on freedom of expression.
The 18-year-old perpetrator Born in Moscow with a Chechen background, he lived ten miles from the crime scene and is believed to have heard about the master’s methods through posts on social media.
The father of a girl in the class, among other things, had published a video in which he demanded that the teacher be fired, something that was picked up by Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who in turn published videos in which he took this as an example of France’s treatment of Muslims. .
According to French media, the killer contacted the men behind the films, but it is unclear if he received any response. Some 80 people who have published publications about the films will be investigated.
– 51 associations will also be visited by our security service this week. And I intend to propose that the organizations of the CCIF and the city of Baraka dissolve completely, Interior Minister Darmanin said in a radio interview on Monday.
Baraka City is an aid organization with operations in the Middle East and Africa, among other places. CCIF (short for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France) is a large organization that has, among other things, lawyers who offer legal assistance to Muslims who consider themselves discriminated against.
During the 2016 burkinide debate it was CCIF is one of the harshest voices against local bans on burkini swimsuits on French beaches, and it was right in the highest court.
CCIF is said to have been mentioned in the video the father released last week, and the organization has at times been accused by right-wing debaters of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. However, it is unclear exactly how the mention in the video involves the organization, despite the Interior Minister saying he equates the videos with a “fatwa” against the teacher.
The interior minister ordered, in a separate development, that 231 foreign nationals identified by the French security service as a threat to the country’s security be deported as soon as possible. Of these radical Islamists, 180 are already in French prisons, and another 50 will be arrested shortly, according to French media.
That was early october as history teacher Samuel Paty told a group of students, ages 13-14, who was going to show Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammad cartoons the next day. The idea was for it to serve as the basis for a debate on freedom of expression. Students who thought they might be offended did not have to attend.
A Muslim girl in the class questioned the teacher’s motive, leading to her being suspended for two days. When the girl’s father heard this, he became upset and called the principal, which in turn led to those involved being called to a meeting.
There, the story might have ended, if the father had not recorded a movie and posted it online, where he named the teacher and demanded that he be fired. The influential Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, with ties to Palestinian Hamas, took up the issue and linked it to the French government’s treatment of Muslims.
Both Sefrioui and the girl’s father are among the at least 15 people who have been detained. The police investigation is in an early stage, but it is suspected that they incited or learned of the assassination plans.
At the same time, it is the political sequel in full swing. Tens of thousands of French people came out on Sunday to show their disgust at the murder and defend freedom of expression.
President Emmanuel Macron has given the green light to harsh crackdowns on Islamist organizations and, judging by the Interior Minister’s statement, the measures are also aimed at political Islam in a broader sense and therefore not only at the groups that support violence.
Right-wing Marine Le Pen goes, as expected, even further. In a speech Monday, he demanded a state of emergency, “martial law” and special jails for radical political Islamists.
However, even the leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants to be proactive against Islamism. He wonders why the security service did not detect the threat to the teacher in time and points with all his hand to the Chechens as a group. This after it emerged that the 18-year-old attacker recently received refugee status for ten years.
– We have welcomed Chechens who have been involved in a civil war with a religious background. We have to ask ourselves what they are doing here, said Mélenchon, who also recalled a conflict between armed gangs in Dijon, where several Chechen families were involved.
