Eiffel Tower: The most recognized landmark of France
Source: BBC
Gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 11 people and injuring 10, French officials say.
Witnesses spoke of sustained gunfire at the office as the attackers opened fire with assault rifles.
The satirical weekly has courted controversy in the past with its take on news and current affairs.
Its latest tweet was a cartoon of the Islamic State militant group leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
An eyewitness, Benoit Bringer, told French TV channel Itele: “Two black-hooded men entered the building with Kalashnikovs. A few minutes later we heard lots of shots.”
The men were then seen fleeing the building.
“It’s carnage,” French police official Luc Poignant told another French channel, BFMTV.
The magazine was fire-bombed in November 2011 a day after it carried a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.
Additional Reading
The Muslim Times’ Collection on Islam’s Condemnation of Terrorism
Freedom of Speech: A Core Islamic Value!
Categories: Counter Terrorism, Europe and Australia, France, Free speach, Free Speech, Freedom, Terrorism
Quoting CNN
Paris (CNN)At least 10 people were killed in a shooting inside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
French President Francois Hollande and other senior government officials are due to arrive at the scene of the shooting shortly, BFMTV said.
At least three police officers were injured, police union spokesman Luc Poignant told BFMTV.
Two heavily armed men entered the Charlie Hebdo office and opened fire inside the building, Poignant said.
The Paris mayor’s office said at least six people were wounded, according to BFMTV.
The magazine’s office was burned three years ago in response to its publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
In November 2011, Charlie Hebdo’s offices caught fire the day it was due to publish a cover making fun of Islamic law.
So another black stigma on the face of Islam.
It looks like a jostling match between two extremes. They poke, sometimes insensitive, fun at what they see presented as Islam and it irritates some Muslims. As there is no way Muslims can stop Charlie Hebdo some of them resort to violence.
The particularly insensitive act on Charlie Hebdo part was publishing a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad (SAW).
I think there should be a uniform policy against publication of material that hurts religious feelings. Freedom of speech is all very well but with freedom should come responsible behavior or laws to ensure responsible behavior.
@Muhammad Zafrullah
In that case, you don’t believe in freedom of speech and expression. And who decides what is offensive or insulting anyway? Many religious people hold and express views others find offensive, does that mean they shouldn’t be free to express and practice their religion? – Of course it doesn’t. That’s life.
If you don’t like something, don’t watch it, read it, look at it. Why should a cartoon or an article or a film affect an individual’s relationship with their God? Ignore it, but don’t expect others who don’t share your faith or view to hold it in the same esteem as you do. Why should religion be treated as a special case when it comes to offence, which is entirely subjective?
European Convention of Human Rights
I think many of the exceptions for freedom of speech are tackled in the Article 10 of European Convention of Human Rights.
This Article provides the right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are “in accordance with law” and “necessary in a democratic society”. This right includes the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas, but allows restrictions for:
We would certainly need the best legal minds humanity can offer to give concrete and legalistic details of the above exceptions that may be acceptable to people of all faiths, ethnicities and nationalities, at least the moderates among them.
If the Supreme Court Justices do not come to our rescue, may be a good and an accomplished writer can help out with a best selling book. But, the key is to at least, win the moderates, in all the established religions of the world and among the agnostics and atheists.
“We would certainly need the best legal minds humanity can offer to give concrete and legalistic details of the above exceptions that may be acceptable to people of all faiths, ethnicities and nationalities, at least the moderates among them.”
I think that’s just it – there’s no such thing as an acceptable middle ground that will appease all parties. It sounds like a slippery slope to censorship, and the reality is none of us has the right to go through life never being offended.
Al do you agree with the exceptions outlined by European Convention of Human Rights?
Additionally, what would you say about anti-semitic speech or to those who deny holocaust.
I am just suggesting a leveled playing field for all races and religions.
Zia,
Are you suggesting a universal level playing field for all or only for your co-religionists who feel they have the monopoly to insult others while expecting insulation from responses?
The European exceptions are very attractive to the muhammadans who will not want the same to be played out where they hold sway. It will be interesting to hear your views on this.
A segment of the public categorically denies the holocaust or tries to water it down. Well, you know which.
@Zia
Yes, on paper I agree with the exceptions, but your view of what constitutes such an exception may differ from mine; I think that’s the point I’m trying to make.
I find anti semitic speech, racist speech, homophobic speech, sexist speech …(the list goes on) abhorrent, but that doesn’t mean I automatically have the right to censor it. Lots of things offend me, offend all of us, that doesn’t mean we necessarily have the right to stop people expressing those views. People can and do deny the holocaust – I find it repugnant, offensive (not to mention ridiculous), but being offended is not important, it’s just taking a point of view. You cannot expect to limit others’ freedom of expression such that they cannot say or write anything that might not agree with someone else’s point of view.
Core values of Western civilization are that we can discuss, laugh, ridicule any ideas, and to find out for ourselves where the truth is. To deny that right is an attempt to limit how people think, an attempt to make people think the same way, and that is unacceptable. Scrutinising and satirising any idea, including religious or philiosphical ideas, is a basic right of the democratic western world. It’s a fundamental freedom.
As for the level playing field for all races and religions, there already is one. Charlie Hebdo satirised many religions, nations, political figures – it didn’t single out Islam.
You’d better get used to the Mohammad cartoons, or move out of Europe. There is no middle ground.
We don’t want your Muhammad Zafrullahs’ here. Go back to the Middle East or wherever else you came from…
But there should be some limits on liberty. Too much love of liberty spoils the show of democracy (Socrates).
There are limits on many other things like not walking naked in the streets, not picking a fight, not disturbing the peace by hooliganism. Such things are not allowed in the society. Then why only the speech matter be given a free unlimited license? Uncontrolled liberty brings chaos and educated people like those sitting in media should take more care.
After all what Charlie Hebdo gained from publishing the cartoons? May they got some money for advertising something bad. That was not a good way of earning. At the same time they have become an instrument in getting few people killed.
The Muslim attackers who killed people have lost their case. They have done something terribly wrong, in the love of religion i.e. Islam. They had no right to do such a thing as it is not allowed in Islam to kill any one. Such a bad deed is not even recommended in Islam. In fact this was their attack on Islam. How bad! To do such a silly thing. It shows their complete ignorance about Islam. They have caused a great damage to Islam. Wassalam.
On January 7, 2015, three gunmen carrying pump-action shotguns and Kalashnikovs entered the Paris office of the controversial French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and shot dead 10 staffers and 2 police officers while five others were critically injured. One of the police officer killed was a Muslim by the name Ahmed Merabet.
As expected, every single Jewish-controlled media outlet has blamed Muslim “terrorism” behind the attack. However, their common conspiracy theories are laughable. They have claimed that the attackers were members of ISIL aka ISIS “Islamist groups” fighting against Syrian and Iraqi governments, and it was a “revenge execution” for Charlie Hebdo’s publishing of insulting cartoons of the Prophet of Islam.
Mike Morell former CIA deputy director and currently senior security consultant with Jewish CBS, is another example of Zionist propagandist. His comment on Charlie Hebdo was: “This is the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the attacks in London in July of 2005. We’ve not lost that many people since that attack.”
Forget that London bombing was a MI5-CIA-Mossad false flag operation. But the CBS “expert” forgot that Israel-loving Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer, who killed 92 youth in July 2011 for country’s support for Palestinian cause.
Gerard Biard (with Jewish family roots), editor-in-chief of the magazine was in London at the time of the shooting.
Before I go further, I like to put some facts for the readers to decide what the Jewish media is hiding.
1. Jewish and Christian authors, Chris Hedge, Max Blumenthal and Fidel Castro have all claimed that ISIL/ISIS was created by the US and Israel to destabilize Muslim states bordering Israel in order to maintain Israel’s military supremacy. David Friedman, founder-CEO of Stratfor, a US-based Jewish intelligence consultant group also claimed that the three attackers were trained militarily and spoke French fluently.
2. If the shooting was to punish the magazine staff for republishing the insulting Danish cartoons, the office was already firebombed in 2011 for that reason. But even if the ISIL goons wanted another revenge, they should have attacked Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten office. It was newspaper’s Jewish editor Flemming Rose, who commissioned and published the cartoons in the first place in 2006.
3. France under president Hollande, a whore of Zionism, has the largest Jewish-controlled government in the country’s history. But in November 2014 French MPs voted to recognize an independent Palestinian state over pre-1967 borders, which infuriated Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He slammed French decision calling it “grave mistake”.
4. Last month, France set off a stampede by voting in favor of Palestine state membership admission to United Nations at the UNSC.
5. The extremist pro-Israel group Jewish Defense League (JDL) which was declared an extremist terrorist organization by the FBI several decades ago, is very active in France. Its members have been involved in terrorist activities against French critical of Jewish power and Israel.
And now we have US-Israel created ISIS “Islamists” storming the Charlie Hebdo office. Was Paris punished for going against Israeli interests?
The Charlie Hebdo magazine is a Right-Wing magazine which hides its hatred of Christianity, Islam, nationalism and anti-Israel critics under the garb of satirical cartoons and freedom of speech – but doesn’t give same rights to the Holocaust deniers.
On Wednesday, a few minutes before the terrorist attack, the Charlie Hebdo tweeted a cartoon of Israeli-trained ISIS leaderAbu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (born as Simon Elliot to Zionist Jewish parents). “Best wishes and good health,” the caption read.
Though none of the perpetrators has been captured, the French authorities have named the gunmen as Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi and Hamyd Mourad. The Kouachi brothers were orphans and raised at a state-run orphanage. Several of Hamyd’s school friends have taken to Twitter saying he was in class with them at the time of the attack.
Below is a partial list of Charlie Hebdo’s published garbage in the name of “freedom of press”.
In October 2011, the magazine published an issue under the name of the Prophet of Islam as “guest author” and rebranded Sharia Hebdo. The cover featured a cartoon (by the cartoonist Luz) of the Prophet (pbuh) telling readers “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.”
In 2012, in response to Muslim protests against the Jewish lobby-produced anti-Islam movie The Innocence of Muslims, the magazine published several insulting cartoons of the Prophet of Islam.
In 2008, the magazine fired its cartoonist Maurice Sinet for exposing former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Jewish family roots. Sinet sued the magazine and won 40,000-Euro judgment.
The magazine also published an insulting cartoon of Jesus and his mother Mary based on the story of the birth of Jesus in Jewish Talmud.
In 2006, the magazine published the notorious Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet of Islam and portraying Islam being a religion that teaches terrorism against Jews and Christians. When French Muslims protested against the publication of the cartoons, French Jewish Lobby CRIF defended Charlie Hebdo’s under freedom of press.
Before, bashing Islam, in 1970, Charlie Hebdo mocked the death of French president Gen. Charles de Gaulle, who was hated by the French Jewish groups for his criticism of French Jewish power and Israel.
The magazine had serious prior financial troubles, and if it was going to close anyway, let the anti-Israel Muslims be made to shoulder its coffin.
“With the recent attack in Paris likely the work of the very terrorists France has been arming and backing across North Africa and the Middle East, the French government itself stands responsible, guilty of the continued material support of a terrorist organization that has now killed French citizens, including two police officers, not only on French soil, but within the French capital itself,” Tony Cartalucci wrote on January 7, 2015.
Jim Stone, an investigative journalist and blogger has pointed out ten Zionist lies in the official story of the incident. Read it here.
http://rehmat1.com/2015/01/09/mossad-visits-charlie-hebdo-office-in-paris/
All Lives Matter.
Live and let live.
Today, on my request at interfaith council meeting, we observe a minute of silence in respect of the lost lives in Paris.
How many people this ‘extremist liberal’ magazine killed with their cartoons? Answer is none! How many people these radical Muslim killed in France yesterday? Answer is 12 . So how are both extremist liberal and radical equally dangerous? Blaming all Muslims for the actions of radicals is like blaming all westerners for the self-serving racist attitudes of some. I detest what those fanatics did and this is not for sure what Islam teach. However, the act of some fanatics and idiots cannot be a base to insult any religion or their religious personality. I consider this attack more of a religious clash than a terrorist attack.Yet it can’t be justified.Prophet himself during his life faced many opposition and blasphemy to which the Prophet reacted in the most forgiving manner. ..It is not the religion that is the problem..it is these idiots who makes fun of the religion. The important question that every Muslim must ask himself/herself in that moment of rage when he/she sees something as insulting to Muslims’ faith is ‘What Would Mohammed Do?’ Every Muslim is taught from the childhood, apart from a lot other forgettable nonsense in the name of Islam, how tolerant the Prophet was to criticism and abuse. Mocking someone’s Race is far, far different than mocking someone’s Religion .
Freedom of speech and expression is right but it can’t be stretched beyond certain limits. Kindly go through the UN Declaration on Human Rights 1948, or Constitution of India or Bill of Rights of France where Human Rights are said to have originated by modern writers. All speak about reasonable restrictions. If you hurt sentiments of anyone there is bound to be a reaction. The quantum of reaction depends upon the level of patience of a person. What prompts Muslims to agitate? That’s an important question to ponder upon. I give an example. UN Atomic Energy chief visits Iraq and certifies that there are no weapons of mass destruction. He resigns from his post against the decision of US to invade Iraq. But nothing prevents US from invading Iraq. And when the people of Iraq fight back to defend their country they are termed as terrorists. Who is a terrorist? One who defends his home or the one who invades others. Similarly Palestinians are also terrorists for grabbing land of a nation that was nowhere on the world map a century back when Britishers created Israel. To inflict more pain, when you add insult to injury of an agitated people, you can’t simply blame them for their reaction. kindly use Peace be Upon Him against the name of prophet. This is basic tenant of Islam and it prejudices none. To all others friends. Indeed Islam is a religion of peace. But the problem is that it’s not being followed by majority of Muslims in true spirit. And also it has been portrayed by western media as evil for its own interests.
Freedom of expression & speech is a great concept as long as it does not offend 1/4th of the worlds population. My right to smoke and expressing myself ends when the smoke from my cigarette gets into the lungs of a non smoker. Creative minds? No they were just opportunists trying to get mileage. It was reckless and nonsense behavior by both parties. Why insult Jesus, Mohammad or Ram to make a living? I agree killing people is condemned in every religion and even in Islam . Note that freedom of speech comes with responsibility .i request u journalists not to mock our prophet like this it hurts us more than it hurts u when some street boys mock ur your old father. Please spare all the real religious personalities form ur business comes through these cartoon stuffs. Which gives chance to some so called jihadist to react in such away. Be responsible.
A terrorist may come up with a reasoning that it’s his freedom of expression. They got hurt mentally and they expressed their freedom which hurt others physically. Mocking religion can’t be a right way of freedom of expression when religions talk about peace. if people distort the religion to suit their own needs that doesn’t mean it’s the problem with the religion rather it is the problem with those sick minded people who distort that religion. Having and sharing fun is good but making fun of others is not. You can be satirical on something that is wrong, to attract attention but bringing in religious figures who stand for peace and tolerance is not right. Now roadside Romeos can use the freedom of expression to pass lewd comments on women and they too can say, well if u don’t like it close your ears. What if this is defended as freedom of expression? There has to be a boundary for freedom of expression too.
If a bunch of poor Muslim migrants can overturn European way of life, maybe Europeans should think twice about making their culture more creative, their economy more vigorous, their society more appealing? Western so called ethnic unicity is a concept that is completely mistaken. Europeans fled to America in millions and now they try to prevent other human beings from entering their realm of double standards???
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk