PODAH to European 'Freedom of Expression'

Malaysiakini:

Teacher knifed to death in France after showing class cartoons of prophet

Reuters


A middle school history teacher in France was knifed to death near the school where earlier this month he had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, considered blasphemous by Muslims, French officials said on Friday.

The attacker was shot dead by a police patrol a few streets away from the scene of the attack late on Friday afternoon, in a residential suburb north-west of Paris.

"One of our fellow citizens was assassinated today because he was teaching, he was teaching pupils about freedom of expression," French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the scene of the attack.

"Our compatriot was flagrantly attacked, was the victim of an Islamist terrorist attack," Macron said. "They won't win... We will act. Firmly, And quickly. You can count on my determination."

The incident carried echoes of the attack five years ago on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, unleashing divisions that are still casting a pall over French society.

Friday's killing, by targeting a teacher, was interpreted by many public figures as an attack on the essence of French statehood, with the values it espouses of secularism, freedom of worship, and freedom of expression.

"This evening, it's the Republic that's under attack," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer wrote in a tweet.

The victim of Friday's attack sustained multiple knife wounds to the neck, according to a police representative. One law enforcement source said the teacher had been beheaded in the attack.

French broadcaster BFMTV reported that the suspected attacker was 18 years old and born in Moscow. Law enforcement officials did not name the attacker, or his victim.

A police source said that witnesses had heard the attacker shout "Allahu Akbar", or "God is Greatest".

The attack took place in the street in front of the middle school where the victim worked, in the suburb of Conflans Sainte-Honorine.

The area is a middle-class neighbourhood with many residents who commute to work in Paris.

According to French media reports, the teacher who was killed had earlier this month shown pupils the cartoons as part of a civics lesson.

A Twitter thread posted on Oct 9 contained a video of a man who said his daughter, a Muslim, was one of the pupils in the class, and that she was shocked and upset by the teacher's actions.

The man in the video urged Twitter users to complain to the authorities and get the teacher removed from his post. Reuters was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video.

France has over the past years seen a series of violent attacks by Islamist militants, including the 2015 Charlie Hebdo killings, and bombings and shootings in November 2015 at the Bataclan theatre and sites around Paris that killed 130 people.

Less than a month ago, a man originally from Pakistan used a meat cleaver to attack and wound two people who were on a cigarette break outside the offices where Charlie Hebdo was based at the time of the 2015 attack.

The issue of the cartoons had been revived last month when Charlie Hebdo decided to re-publish them to coincide with the start of the trial of accomplices in the 2015 attack.

Al-Qaeda, the militant Islamist group that claimed responsibility for those killings, threatened to attack Charlie Hebdo again after it republished the cartoons.

The magazine said last month it published to assert its right to freedom of expression and to show it would not be cowed into silence by violent attacks. That stance was backed by many prominent French politicians and public figures.

Reacting to Friday's attack outside the school, Charlie Hebdo wrote on its Twitter account: "Intolerance has crossed a new threshold and does not seem to give ground to anything in imposing its terror on our country."

- Reuters

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Thursday, January 08, 2015

Massacre at Charlie Hebdo - who is guilty?

TMI - 12 dead, including policemen, in Paris shooting at satirical publication office

I join the condemnation against such violence which doesn't prove nor achieve anything but where innocent people instead are killed.

But let's not just leave it there - we need to put the total picture in perspective where we need to also condemn Charlie Hebdo for its unnecessary provocations against Muslims.

The (then) French Foreign Minister was damn angry with the earlier provocation of Charlie Hebdo in publishing the Prophet Mohamad caricatures, where he stated:

"In France, there is a principle of freedom of expression, which should not be undermined. In the present context, given this absurd video that has been aired, strong emotions have been awakened in many Muslim countries. Is it really sensible or intelligent to pour oil on the fire?"

What was Charlie Hebdo's excuse or if we want to be kind to it, reason for re-publishing (not first to publish as the Norwegians did it first followed by the Danes) something which had already inflamed Muslims all over the world?

As TMI reported: Despite being taken to court under anti-racism laws, the weekly continued to publish controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet.

In September 2012, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of a naked prophet as violent protests were taking place in several countries over a low-budget film, titled "Innocence of Muslims", which was made in the United States and had insulted the prophet.

French schools, consulates and cultural centres in 20 Muslim countries were briefly closed along with embassies for fear of retaliatory attacks at the time.

Why was it so adamant about being provocative against Muslims?

Charlie Hebdo's director, Stephane Charbonnier, pompously claimed that his magazine was not really fuelling the (angry Muslim) fire but rather using its 'freedom of expression' to comment on the news in a satirical way.

Its editor responded to the French ministerial rebuke: "We do caricatures of everyone, and above all every week, and when we do it with the Prophet, it's called provocation."

'Freedom of expression'? Kerbau!

Oh, that thick-skinned double standard hypocritical claim again, again and yet again by those European press.

Okay then, can Stephane Charbonnier or anyone in Charlie Hebdo please explain why it sacked its former cartoonist Siné (real name Maurice Sinet) in 2008 for his cartoon-article on the marriage of Jean Sakorzy, the son of France former president, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, a Jewish heiress, after a (obviously) Jewish journalist described Sinet's comments as anti-Semitic.

For more see my post Charlie Hebdo - further Western hypocrisy.

Thus Charlie Hebdo's publishing "sin" was not so much in its claimed pompous right to exercise the European's so-called bull about "freedom of expression" if even in an unnecessary provocative manner, but in its double standard hypocrisy in sacking its former cartoonist Maurice Sinet for a mere seemingly innocuous comment about the wedding, where Sinet said of the young bridegroom: "He'll go a long way in life, this lad!"

Whether Sinet was referring to the heiress' wealth or Jewish heritage was not known but regardless, please tell me, how was it in any way anti-Semitic?

And compare Sinet's remark with the degree of provocation in publishing the Prophet Mohamad caricatures.

"Freedom of expression"? As we Malaysians would say: Pordah!

But more interestingly, we must ask why Charlie Hebdo has persisted in its provocations against Muslims while over pampering to Jewish issues, even when there had been no issue as in the case of Maurice Sinet's comment?

Yes, why? Do read my 2007 post The 'O' in SWOT regarding the 3 'I'-s in the ME particularly in its latter section about Daniel Pipes and Flemming Rose, cultural editor of a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the bloke who published the Prophet Mohamed caricatures.

By the by, have you heard of David Irving?

He was jailed by Austria for questioning details about the Holocaust. Read my post European 'Freedom of Expression' took nosedive!

"Freedom of expression"? Pordah again!