Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication has been described as anti-racist, sceptical, secular, and within the tradition of left-wing radicalism, publishing articles about the far-right, religion, politics and culture.
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons were first published by Jyllands-Posten in late September 2005; approximately two weeks later, nearly 3,500 people demonstrated peacefully in Copenhagen. In November, several European newspapers re-published the images, triggering more protests.
The publication of satirical cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005 led to violence, arrests, inter-governmental tensions, and debate about the scope of free speech and the place of Muslims in the West. Many Muslims stress that image of Muhammad is blasphemous, while many Westerners have defended the right of free speech. A number of governments, organizations, and individuals have issued statements defining their stance on the protests or cartoons. This article details the reactions of international organisations and countries, as well as detailing events surrounding the publication. For the opinions of individuals and other organisations please see Opinions on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. For a detailed, chronological account of the controversy please see Timeline of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, most of which depicted Muhammad, a principal figure of the religion of Islam. The newspaper announced that this was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Muslim groups in Denmark complained, and the issue eventually led to protests around the world, including violent demonstrations and riots in some Muslim countries.
Blasphemy in Islam is impious utterance or action concerning God, but is broader than in normal English usage, including not only the mocking or vilifying of attributes of Islam but denying any of the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Examples include denying that the Quran was divinely revealed, the prophethood of one of the Islamic prophets, insulting an angel, or maintaining God had a son.
Mirza Masroor Ahmad is the current and fifth leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. His official title within the movement is Fifth Caliph of the Messiah. He was elected on 22 April 2003, three days after the death of his predecessor Mirza Tahir Ahmad.
The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks that depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog. Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on 18 August as part of an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion.
The permissibility of depictions of Muhammad in Islam has been a contentious issue. Oral and written descriptions of Muhammad are readily accepted by all traditions of Islam, but there is disagreement about visual depictions. The Quran does not explicitly or implicitly forbid images of Muhammad. The ahadith present an ambiguous picture, but there are a few that have explicitly prohibited Muslims from creating visual depictions of human figures. It is agreed on all sides that there is no authentic visual tradition as to the appearance of Muhammad, although there are early legends of portraits of him, and written physical descriptions whose authenticity is often accepted.
Islam Net is a Sunni Salafi Islamic organisation in Norway, founded by Pakistani-Norwegian engineering student Fahad Qureshi in 2008. It has local chapters in Oslo, Akershus, Tromsø and Bodø, and is initiating a fifth in Trondheim. By 2011, the organisation had more than 1,400 paying members, centred on students. The Verdens Gang newspaper reported that the organization is involved in the radicalization of the Muslim youths. Members of this organization have also joined ISIS. The organisation is under the surveillance of Norway Police Intelligence Agency PST and the organisation is banned from the established mosque community in Norway.
On 7 January 2015 at about 11:30 a.m. CET local time, two French Muslim brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which took responsibility for the attack. Several related attacks followed in the Île-de-France region on 7–9 January 2015, including the Hypercacher kosher supermarket siege where a terrorist killed four Jewish people.
"Je suis Charlie" is a slogan and logo created by French art director Joachim Roncin and adopted by supporters of freedom of speech and freedom of the press after the 7 January 2015 shooting in which twelve people were killed at the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. It identifies a speaker or supporter with those who were killed at the Charlie Hebdo shooting, and by extension, a supporter of freedom of speech and resistance to armed threats. Some journalists embraced the expression as a rallying cry for the freedom of self-expression.
Elsa Cayat was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and a columnist for the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France. She was one of 12 victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack and was killed along with the seven journalists, maintenance worker, one visitor and two police officers. She was the only woman working for Charlie Hebdo to die in the attack. She was one of two Jews killed in the attack, along with Georges Wolinski.
This international reactions to the Charlie Hebdo Shooting contains issued statements in response to the 7 January 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting. The response was largely one of condemnation.
Charlie Hebdo issue No. 1178 was published on 14 January 2015. It was the first issue after the Charlie Hebdo shooting on 7 January 2015, in which terrorists Saïd and Chérif Kouachi killed twelve people. The edition was put together by surviving Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, journalists, and former contributors and was prepared in a room in the offices of Libération. The issue's print run of 7.95 million copies became a record for the French press. The publication sparked protests by Muslim demonstrators in Yemen, Pakistan, Mauritania, Algeria, Mali, Senegal, Niger, Chechnya, and other countries. In Niger, violent protests led to 10 deaths.
From 7 to 9 January 2015, terrorist attacks occurred across the Île-de-France region, particularly in Paris. Three attackers killed a total of 17 in four shooting attacks, and police then killed the three assailants. The attacks also wounded 22 other people. A fifth shooting attack did not result in any fatalities. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility and said that the coordinated attacks had been planned for years. The claim of responsibility for the deadly attack on the magazine came in a video showing AQAP commander Nasr Ibn Ali al-Ansi, with gunmen in the background that were later identified as the Kouachi brothers. However, while authorities say the video is authentic, there is no proof that AQAP helped to carry out the attacks. Amedy Coulibaly, who committed another leg of the attacks claimed that he belonged to ISIS before he died.
Charlie Hebdo issue No. 1011 is an issue of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo published on 2 November 2011. Several attacks against Charlie Hebdo, including an arson attack at its headquarters, were motivated by the issue's cover caricature of Muhammad, whose depiction is prohibited in some of interpretations of Islam. The issue's subtitle Charia Hebdo references Islamic sharia law.
Zineb El Rhazoui is a Moroccan-born French journalist. She was a columnist for Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo from 2011 to 2017. She was in Morocco during the Charlie Hebdo massacre on 7 January 2015.
On September 25, 2020, two people were injured in a stabbing outside the former headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The magazine's headquarters had previously been the site of an Islamic terrorist attack in 2015.
The murder of Samuel Paty, a French middle-school teacher, took place on 16 October 2020 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. Paty was killed and beheaded by an Islamist.
On the morning of 29 October 2020, three people were killed in a stabbing attack at Notre-Dame de Nice, a Roman Catholic basilica in Nice, France. The alleged attacker, Tunisian man Brahim Aouissaoui, was shot by the police and taken into custody. Both French President Emmanuel Macron and the Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, said it was a terrorist attack attributed to Islamic extremism.
