Gerard Biard, editor-in-chief of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, on Sunday denounced the Western publications that have declin...
Gerard Biard, editor-in-chief of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, on Sunday denounced the Western publications that have declined to reprint his paper’s controversial cartoons in the aftermath of the Jan. 7 mass shooting at Charlie Hebdo's Paris office.
“This cartoon is not just a little figure. It’s a symbol. It’s the symbol of freedom of speech, of freedom of religion, of democracy and secularism,” Biard told NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Sunday. “When they refuse to publish this cartoon, when they blur it out, when they decline to publish it, they blur out democracy.”
Biard said he was in London at the time of the shooting, when two masked gunmenstormed the publication’s headquarters and killed 12 people, including editor Stéphane Charbonnier and several of the paper's cartoonists and editorialists.
The attack, for which the group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility this week, was an apparent response to the paper’s history of publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
In the days since the attack, several news organizations have declined to reprint the controversial drawings in full, and have also chosen not to reprint the paper’s first cover since Jan. 7, which depicts Muhammad weeping and holding a sign that reads “I am Charlie.” A headline above the drawing reads “All Is Forgiven.”
Read More - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/18/charlie-hebdo-cartoons_n_6496414.html
“This cartoon is not just a little figure. It’s a symbol. It’s the symbol of freedom of speech, of freedom of religion, of democracy and secularism,” Biard told NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Sunday. “When they refuse to publish this cartoon, when they blur it out, when they decline to publish it, they blur out democracy.”
Biard said he was in London at the time of the shooting, when two masked gunmenstormed the publication’s headquarters and killed 12 people, including editor Stéphane Charbonnier and several of the paper's cartoonists and editorialists.
The attack, for which the group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility this week, was an apparent response to the paper’s history of publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
In the days since the attack, several news organizations have declined to reprint the controversial drawings in full, and have also chosen not to reprint the paper’s first cover since Jan. 7, which depicts Muhammad weeping and holding a sign that reads “I am Charlie.” A headline above the drawing reads “All Is Forgiven.”
Read More - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/18/charlie-hebdo-cartoons_n_6496414.html
