22 Jan 2012 23:00
Outrage over the killing of journalists and political cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo by masked gunment has spread across the world, and many fear an Islamophobic backlash. Our contributor brings us his photos and his account from January 2012 when he spent four days with the magazine’s staff, observing their coverage of the French Presidential race, their creative process, and the ethos of their artists and writers.
ARCHIVE PHOTOS FROM PARIS, JANUARY 2012
FULL ARTICLE UPON REQUEST
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On January 7, 2015 masked gunmen entered the Paris bureau of the popular French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo and opened fire, killing twelve people, among them artists and journalists working for the magazine for years. The French government was quick to call the attack an act of terrorism, as French President Francois Hollande visited the scene of the murders just hours after police arrived. So far one 18-year-old man has turned himself in to the police, however his involvement is yet to be determined. Police have released photos of two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, who they believe to be the two gunmen still at-large. Early in the evening, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack, though their links to the attack are yet to be confirmed by French authorities working the case.
This isn’t the first time Charlie Hebdo comes under fire. The magazine with a circulation of about 55,000 had previously come under fire for publishing cartoons mocking Mohammed and was firebombed after publishing an earlier set of cartoons that mocked Islam. France's Muslim leaders and militants protested over the cartoons, and France's embassies were closed across the Islamic world. At the time the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo were published, often violent -- and sometimes deadly -- protests raged on across the world against an anti-Islam film made in the US that enraged many Muslims.
