French PM flays attack on satirical magazine
Source: Agencies |
November 3, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FRANCE'S prime minister condemned an apparent arson attack early yesterday that destroyed the offices of a satirical French newspaper that had "invited" the Prophet Muhammad as a guest editor this week.
A police official said the blaze broke out overnight at the offices of Charlie Hebdo weekly in Paris, and the exact cause remains unclear. No injuries were reported.
Police cited a witness saying that someone was seen throwing two firebombs at the building.
The newspaper director, who goes by the name Charb, said the fire was triggered by a Molotov cocktail. He blamed "radical stupid people who don't know what Islam is," for the apparent attack.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon called on the authorities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. "Freedom of expression is an inalienable value of our democracy .... No cause can justify a violent action," Fillon said in a statement.
The front-page of the weekly, subtitled "Sharia Hebdo," a reference to Islamic law, showed a cartoon-like man with a turban, white robe and beard smiling broadly and saying, in an accompanying bubble, "100 lashes if you don't die laughing."
Newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in 2005 by a Danish newspaper triggered protests in Muslim countries.
The president of an umbrella group representing France's Muslim community - at some 5 million the largest in western Europe - also condemned the attack.
Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, said his organization also deplores "the very mocking tone of the paper toward Islam and its prophet but reaffirms with force its total opposition to all acts and forms of violence."
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
Charb said the current issue, which appeared on newsstands yesterday morning - after the fire - was centered on last week's victory of a once-banned Islamist party in Tunisia's first free elections and last month's decision by Libya's new leaders that Sharia, or Islamic legislation, will be the main source of law in post-Gadhafi Libya.
"It was a joke where the topic was to imagine a world where Sharia would be applied," Charb said. "But since everyone tells us not to worry about Libya or Tunisia, we wanted to explain what would be a soft version of Sharia, a Sharia applied in a soft manner."
A police official said the fire, at about 1am, was quickly contained, but a large part of new offices on two levels was heavily damaged and equipment used by journalists to produce the paper were inoperable. Piles of scorched papers and equipment were seen at the weekly and its website was down.
Charb vowed to continue publishing and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the city would help the publication find a new office space.
A police official said the blaze broke out overnight at the offices of Charlie Hebdo weekly in Paris, and the exact cause remains unclear. No injuries were reported.
Police cited a witness saying that someone was seen throwing two firebombs at the building.
The newspaper director, who goes by the name Charb, said the fire was triggered by a Molotov cocktail. He blamed "radical stupid people who don't know what Islam is," for the apparent attack.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon called on the authorities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. "Freedom of expression is an inalienable value of our democracy .... No cause can justify a violent action," Fillon said in a statement.
The front-page of the weekly, subtitled "Sharia Hebdo," a reference to Islamic law, showed a cartoon-like man with a turban, white robe and beard smiling broadly and saying, in an accompanying bubble, "100 lashes if you don't die laughing."
Newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in 2005 by a Danish newspaper triggered protests in Muslim countries.
The president of an umbrella group representing France's Muslim community - at some 5 million the largest in western Europe - also condemned the attack.
Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, said his organization also deplores "the very mocking tone of the paper toward Islam and its prophet but reaffirms with force its total opposition to all acts and forms of violence."
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
Charb said the current issue, which appeared on newsstands yesterday morning - after the fire - was centered on last week's victory of a once-banned Islamist party in Tunisia's first free elections and last month's decision by Libya's new leaders that Sharia, or Islamic legislation, will be the main source of law in post-Gadhafi Libya.
"It was a joke where the topic was to imagine a world where Sharia would be applied," Charb said. "But since everyone tells us not to worry about Libya or Tunisia, we wanted to explain what would be a soft version of Sharia, a Sharia applied in a soft manner."
A police official said the fire, at about 1am, was quickly contained, but a large part of new offices on two levels was heavily damaged and equipment used by journalists to produce the paper were inoperable. Piles of scorched papers and equipment were seen at the weekly and its website was down.
Charb vowed to continue publishing and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the city would help the publication find a new office space.
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