Charlie Hebdo Will No Longer Draw Muhammad Cartoons

Laurent Sourisseau, the editor of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, said in a recent interview that the magazine will no longer depict the Prophet Muhammad in its pages.

Speaking to German magazine Stern, Sourisseau expressed that the magazine had done what it sought to accomplish: “we’ve done our job. We have defended the right to caricature.”

The Telegraph reports:

The weekly magazine’s editor, who is known as Riss, said: “We have drawn Mohammad to defend the principle that one can draw whatever they want. It is a bit strange though: we are expected to exercise a freedom of expression that no one dares to.

He told the German magazine he did not want to believe the magazine was possessed by Islam but maintained that he believed that they had “the right to criticise all religions”.

His comments come six months after the three-day siege in Paris which began on January 7 when two brothers stormed into the magazine’s offices and shot dead 12 people.

Among the dead were cartoonists Charb – (real name Stephane Charbonnier) 47, an artist and editor of Charlie Hebdo, Cabu – (real name Jean Cabut), 76, the lead cartoonist for Hebdo, Georges Wolinski, 80, an artist who had been drawing cartoons since the 1960s and Tignous – (real name Bernard Verlhac) 57, a member of Cartoonists for Peace.

Mr Sourisseau came close to death himself and only survived the massacre after playing dead, he told the magazine.

He recounted the tragic details of the terror attack committed by Islamist terrorists Said and Chérif Kouachi. The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack which they said was punishment for the cartoons of the prophet. In Islam, it is blasphemous to depict the prophet visually.

“When it was over, there was no sound. No complaints. No whining. That is when I understood that most were dead,” Mr Sourisseau added.

In the interview, he said Islam was not the only religion they could find faults within.

“The mistakes you could blame Islam for can be found in other religions,” the editor, who owns 40 per cent of the company’s shares, said.

Read the rest here.

—Posted by Roisin Davis

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