:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/J3A5CDLG2RAURPUZU7DCPTZ4YY.JPG "Je suis Charlie Hebdo? The magazine returns to the center of the controversy (and Iran is already retaliating)")
In December, the magazinecharlie hebdo” taunted the “Qatargate”, the corruption network with which Qatar became a major player in Europe. And yesterday, as part of a special edition, they published several cartoons supporting the protests in Iran. Hence, they printed the face of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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The run is named “January 7th”date on which eight years ago they were victims of a terrorist attack. The slaughter it happened after cartoons of the prophet were published Muhammad and two Islamists –Said and Cherif Kouachi– They will enter the newsroom and kill everyone they can.
It was not the first time that extremists had attacked them for using the image of their prophet. In 2011, they threw a gasoline pump to their offices.
In 2020, “Charlie Hebdo” returned to show those cartoons, within an edition that was titled “all for this”.
Now, the satirical magazine is once again at the center of the controversy. The latest edition shows the results of a contest that, as noted by Radio France International, had as a rule to give it “’a beating to the mules’ [clérigos en el islam] At a time when the demonstrations unleashed by the death of Mahsa Aminia 22-year-old Kurdish girl who died in September after being detained by the morality police for breaking the country’s strict dress code”.
According to Riss, his editor-in-chiefthere should be no reprisals because “It is not the first time that cartoons have been drawn about the Ayatollahs”. He also added: “It’s not blasphemy either, we still have the right to draw whatever we want. They may not like it, but it doesn’t matter. In the following days we suffered computer attacks to try to block the site. ‘Charlie Hebdo’ is usually attacked when there are things like this, it is not new”.
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Outrage and reprisals
“The insulting and indecent act of a French publication of disseminating caricatures against religious and political authority will not go without an effective and firm response. […] We will not allow the French government to cross the line. You have definitely taken the wrong path.he tweeted Hosein Amir-Abdollahian Foreign Minister of Iran.
It was not the only way in which the regime responded.
Pair #biche pic.twitter.com/TgD6CWCdIK
—Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) January 5, 2023
In addition to calling the French ambassador Nicolas Roche to give explanations, the suspension of activities of the French Research Institute in Iran. And, of course, the French government was accused of “continued inaction against expressions of anti-Islamism and the propagation of racist hatred in French publications”.
However, the French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, defended the magazine. “In France there are freedom of the presscontrary to what happens in Iran”. Likewise, Infobae notes, she “he recalled that in France there is no crime of blasphemywhich means that religious principles and symbols can be criticized and ridiculed”.
And that is exactly the goal of “Charlie Hebdo”. He stated it on his own website: “Our intention was to support the Iranians’ fight for freedom by ridiculing their religious leader from another era, thus consigning him to historical oblivion.”.
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What reaction can be expected from Iran?
The analyst Francisco Belaúnde considers that it is possible thatescalate” reprisals similar to the one against the French Research Institute in Iran. “You also have to remember that Iran specialized in arresting foreigners as a kind of blackmail, so that could also happen.”.
“But there is nothing they can do. This is a matter of freedom of the press, nobody can prohibit ‘Charlie Hebdo’ from publishing the images they decide. The French government cannot do it, except the Iranian one”, he adds.
And another attack?
“The Government of Iran has organized attacks, but not necessarily for these types of issues. Although, of course, nothing can be ruled out. In any case, it will be necessary to see how the Shiites and Sunnis respond – those of the 2015 attack were from Al Qaeda, a radical group of this group. Maybe there will be demonstrations”.
Memories of 2015
RTVE remembers what happened on January 7, 2015. Then, “two hooded” (the brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi) entered the newsroom of “Charlie Hebdo” and murdered 12 people, “including the director and some of the most famous caricaturists in France”. They also killed a policeman which was outside the building.
According to “El Diario.es”, consequently, several collaborators of the magazine began to resign, which affected the quality of the publication.
The world supported the victims of the terrorist attack with the slogan “Je suis Charlie”.
“But with the passage of time, things changed. The French extreme right has tried, since then, to use this and other attacks to agitate Islamophobia, while many sectors of the left pointed out that the support was based on the defense of freedom of expression, not on the editorial line of ‘Charlie Hebdo’. ‘”write the middle.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
