The Provocative History of French Weekly Newspaper Charlie Hebdo
"If we
can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the
consequences of Islamism, that is annoying"
The motivation behind the attack that has left at least 12 people
dead at the office of French satirical weekly
Charlie Hebdo
on Wednesday appears to be its long history of mocking religions,
in particular Islam. According to some witnesses, the gunmen said
they were defending the Prophet Muhammad as they opened fire.
The most recent tweet from the publication featured a cartoon of
the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Yet this isn’t the first time the provocative left-wing weekly
has found itself under threat.
Charlie Hebdo was introduced in 1970 after another
publication,
Hara-Kiri, was banned for mocking the death
of former French President Charles de Gaulle. Much of
Hara-Kiri’s
staff simply migrated to the new publication, which was named in
reference to Charlie Brown comics.
Hebdo is short for
hebdomadaire
which means
weekly in French.
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Though the publication has never found wide circulation, it
quickly made a name for itself thanks to its incendiary cartoons,
which took shots at high-profile figures, including the far right,
politicians and celebrities, and religions of all kinds. Just last
month, an edition featured a cartoon of the Virgin Mary,
spread-eagled, giving birth to Jesus.\
In 1981,
Charlie Hebdo ceased publication because of a
lack of funds, though it was resurrected in 1992. In 2006, the
publication caused widespread controversy when it republished the
controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were first
printed in the Danish newspaper
Jyllands-Posten and
prompted protests from Muslims around the world.
Charlie
Hebdo’s reprint of the cartoons — not to mention the
addition of their own work — gained it as much notoriety as the
Danish newspaper. The issue saw unusually high sales, but drew
criticism from many Muslim groups. France’s then President Jacques
Chirac
released a statement at the time saying,
“Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in
particular religious convictions, should be avoided. Freedom of
expression should be exercised in a spirit of responsibility.”
Charlie Hebdo responded by publishing a letter, signed
by 12 writers and intellectuals including Salman Rushdie and Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, which
read, in part, “We, writers, journalists,
intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism
and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular
values for all.”
The following year
Charlie Hebdo was sued by two French Muslim associations,
the Great Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organisations
of France, for reprinting the Danish cartoons. A French court
rejected the case, saying the publication’s decision to publish
the images did not incite religious hatred.
Yet the backlash over the publication’s provocative critique of
Islam continued — sometimes with violent consequences. On Nov. 2,
2011,
Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed and
destroyed the day after the magazine announced the Prophet
Muhammad as its “editor in chief” for its next issue. The cover
also carried a caricature of the Prophet. As that attack took
place in the early morning hours, no one was injured.
The publication’s editor Stéphane Charbonnier, who also published
cartoons under the name Charb,
told the BBC following the firebombing, “If
we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about
anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of
Islamism, that is annoying.” Charb is believed to have been killed
on Wednesday.
The following year, after the weekly published more provocative
caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, French officials announced
they would temporarily close French embassies, consulates,
cultural centers and schools in more than a dozen Muslim countries
for safety. Despite the condemnation from multiple groups,
Charlie
Hebdo defended its editorial choices.
“The aim is to laugh,”
Charlie Hebdo journalist
Laurent Léger
said at the time. “We want to laugh at the
extremists — every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish,
Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and
acts we cannot accept.”
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根据中国国家宗教事务局网站的消息，王作安在昨日上午走访了北京基督教朝阳堂和天主教宣武门堂。
今年8月初，中国官方媒体《人民日报》称，目前中国的基督徒在2300万至4000万之间。不过，中外
学界普遍认为这一数字并不准确。这其中，较为主流的
数据认为，目前中国的基督徒和天主徒的总数在7000万至8000万之间。 
