By Mabel Berezin Responding to the massacre at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, President Barack Obama and other public figures such as John Kerry, author Salman Rushdie — even the far-right nationalist French politician Marine Le Pen — have defended the right to freedom of expression as a core democratic value. Huge demonstrations in…
In a recent interview with L’Obs, retired journalist Delfeil de Ton, who was a member of the first Charlie Hebdo team, stated: “He [Charb] was the leader. What need was there for him to lead the team into this game of one-upmanship?” He cited the repeated caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, notably one from 2012…
French authorities announced an investigation of French comedian Dieudonné for “advocating terrorism” following his Facebook post after the Paris attacks. “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly”, the comedian wrote, playing the expression “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) off a reference to Friday’s kosher supermarket attacker Amedy Coulibaly. Minister of…
They jogged together or did calisthenics along the hilly lawns and tulip-dotted gardens of Buttes-Chaumont, the public park in northeastern Paris built more than a century ago under Emperor Napoleon III. Or they met in nearby apartments with a janitor turned self-proclaimed imam, a man deemed too radical by one local mosque because of his…
Following the deadly attack at Charlie Hebdo and hostage-taking at a kosher market in Paris, the government is deploying 10,000 troops throughout France and sending 5,000 police to protect Jewish sites. Authorities continue to search for the accomplices to both attacks. Prime Minister Manuel Valls believes that the gunman who killed a policewoman and four…
