More than 100 French news outlets on Wednesday called on people to support satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which was attacked by gunmen in 2015, after its staff received new death threats.
The magazine republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed earlier this month at the start of a trial of suspects in the 2015 attack on their Paris office. While the edition sold out in France, it provoked condemnation from several Muslim countries, and al-Qaeda militants reportedly threatened a repeat of the 2015 massacre of the magazine’s staff.
Charlie Hebdo published the open letter on the front page of its new edition, denouncing “new totalitarian ideologies, sometimes claiming to be inspired by religious texts”.
France Médias Monde, the parent company of FRANCE 24, RFI and MCD, is among the letter’s signatories.
Urging people to support the magazine, the letter says: “The enemies of freedom must understand that we are all, together, their steadfast opponents, regardless of our differences of opinion or beliefs.”
The threats coincide with the trial of 14 suspected accomplices of the perpetrators of the massacres at Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket that left a total of 17 dead. Twelve people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the magazine’s office.
Charlie Hebdo’s head of human resources Marika Bret told Le Point magazine that police had rushed her from her home after she received death threats they judged to be credible. She told Le Point there was “crazy amount of hatred” towards the magazine.
Marika Bret, who has been living under police protection for nearly five years in the aftermath of the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, said the threats were “sufficiently concrete to be taken seriously”.
Source: France24
