Terror attack on Paris satire comic 'Charlie-Hebdo' (for drawing Mohammed)

[Sharky]

Scumbag extremists kill many of Frances most well known comic artists including Cabu, Wolinski, Charb and Tignousvery famous and symbolic artists. They charged into the office this morning with machine guns and apparently a rocket launcher! Shot up the office then escaped in a black car, they also shot a police officer. They apparently shouted 'The prophet has been avenged.'

More info:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15551998

Fuck these scumbags for so many reasons not least for murdering innocent people, but also for giving UKIP and other far right parties more ammunition... If you don't see yourself as European then stay the fuck out of Europe!

It's not the first time Charlie-Hebrdo has been attacked, in 2011 their previous office was firebombed after they reprinted the Danish cartoon of Mohammed. In response they posted this cartoon of a Muslim man kissing one of their artists.

Translation: 'Love is stronger than hate'



A comic from last week, drawn by one of the men who was killed today:
Translation (although my French is rusty)
Header: 'Still no attacks in France?"
Terrorist: "Wait, we have until after January to make our wishes."


Other art on the subject matter:




Finally, in all fairness they go after everyone. Here is the Pope Benedict resigning so he can finally be gay.
Translation: "Free at last!"

[MadeManG74]

This is really awful news, heart goes out to the victims and their family. Scary to think such a violent response was over something like a comic strip.

[CrazyT]

Seems these guys were determined and focused towards the one person they felt needed to die.

I don't understand muslims like this. We live in a huge world with billions of people. Killing 1 guy will only confirm their portrayals and awaken more with the same thought to produce even more cartoons. I'm not a fan of offensive cartoons as i'm not a fan of offensiveness in general. I like it when people in general are just respectful and kind to each other and usually hang out with that sort of croud. But it is better to ignore if you disagree rather than attacking in any sort of way imo. Really awful news. The people behind this are retarted

[inthesky]

#JeSuisCharlie

It seems like mostly people understand that it was a collection of assholes who managed to get away that did this and not something representative of all Muslims. Stuff like this will indeed only inflame nativism and racism and make those who sympathized with the murderers emboldened.

[max_cady]

#JeSuisCharlie I don't care who they are / or who they worshiped. The people who did this are monsters. Plain and simple.

[Aki-at]

Terrible news, hopefully they catch the killers soon. Violence should never be the answer for anything, let alone some harmless cartoon drawings. Heart goes out to the friends and families effected by this tragedy

[Sharky]

All this kind of thing does is stoke the coals of hate, racism and intolerance from both sides. When really there shouldn't be 'sides' at all.

Any time I see a group of racist, bigots like UKIP getting a foothold in the public mind or anti-Islamic demonstrations I feel a bit sad and embarrassed that it's still happening. That is not the Europe I believe in. I think we should be above that shit, tolerant, multicultural and progressive... and often I think we are!

However, objectively I can see exactly why these pricks like UKIP and the BNP and other European equivalents have gained some ground.... Shit like the attack today drives people too them. In the end it literally does nobody any good... Not even the cause of the terrorists because this will only make Charlie Hebdo a world wide name, unite Europe against them and create even more Mohammed satire.

Nobody wins today...

[max_cady]

This is where things get a little more complicated. The one thing that keeps bothering in the aftermath of an horrific attack like this is that yes, while this was horrible, there seems to be this impression from the media that retaliation is something that comes straight after an event like this.

It doesn't help the debate when as soon as something like this happens, there is speculation about what the average people or in this case,  the average person in France will somehow be driven by racist / xenophobic urges to attack a mosque or any Islamic community living in France in order to avenge those killings, ergo hate crimes.

It doesn't help because under the guise of equality you have to cast everyone (incidentally the victims as well) as being potentially hostile, racist, biased or xenophobe even if nothing actually happens.

[MadeManG74]

This may not be connected:
http://www.france24.com/en/20150108-france-police-officer-wounded-shooting-southern-paris-montrouge/

A policewoman died of her injuries following a shootout in southern Paris on Thursday, according to a police source, heightening tensions a day after the deadly terrorist attack on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a manhunt was underway for the suspect in the shooting, which also left a city employee seriously injured.

The officer had stopped to investigate a traffic accident in the southern Paris suburb Montrouge early Thursday morning when she came under fire.

“There was an officer in front of a white car and a man running away who shot,” said witness Ahmed Sassi, who saw the shooting from his home nearby.

He said the shooter wore dark clothes but no mask. “It didn’t look like a big gun because he held it with one hand,” Sassi added.

Live French television showed around a dozen police dressed in protective wear and helmets massed outside a building near the scene of the crime.

The shootout comes in the wake of the murder of 12 people – including two police officers – in an assault on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in central Paris.

It was not immediately clear, however, whether the two incidents were connected, and Cazeneuve warned against drawing any conclusions about Thursday’s shooting.

Mosques attacked:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11332467/Paris-shootings-lead-to-firebomb-attacks-on-French-mosques.html

Muslim places of worship in two French towns were fired upon overnight, leaving no casualties, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Three blank grenades were thrown at a mosque shortly after midnight in the city of Le Mans, west of Paris. A bullet hole was also found in a window of the mosque.
In the Port-la-Nouvelle district near Narbonne in southern France, several shots were fired in the direction of a Muslim prayer hall shortly after evening prayers. The hall was empty, the local prosecutor said.
An explosion at a kebab shop near a mosque in the eastern French town of Villefranche-sur-Saone on Thursday morning also left no casualties. Local prosecutors have described it as a "criminal act"

I was hoping that when I checked this morning there would be reports that they had been caught, seems two are still at large? It's hard to keep track with so much happening:
http://globalnews.ca/news/1759527/1-journalist-dead-3-police-injured-in-shooting-at-french-newspaper/

[inthesky]

This is where things get a little more complicated. The one thing that keeps bothering in the aftermath of an horrific attack like this is that yes, while this was horrible, there seems to be this impression from the media that retaliation is something that comes straight after an event like this.

It doesn't help the debate when as soon as something like this happens, there is speculation about what the average people or in this case,  the average person in France will somehow be driven by racist / xenophobic urges to attack a mosque or any Islamic community living in France in order to avenge those killings, ergo hate crimes.

It doesn't help because under the guise of equality you have to cast everyone (incidentally the victims as well) as being potentially hostile, racist, biased or xenophobe even if nothing actually happens.

I regularly read a mainstream online American publication and they don't seem to report anything misleading at least, so far. Even in the interpretive stuff. Commentary would be interesting, anyway.

On some level, yes, hand-wringing about these extremist attacks promoting more racist sentiment isn't directly productive, but there's truth to it. Throughout Europe parties identified as far right receive momentum anti-immigration sentiment and this has been observable for the past few years. For the uninformed, it could easily provoke a reactionary response. I generally think it's better that we at least highlight that this attack came from evil people and doesn't mean that Muslim people are the reason a country is falling off the rails etc.

As for the last paragraph, maybe? for all you know, I am super racist and support separatist or anti-immigration movements, and my initial response to this attack is to reflexively assume that Muslim people are violent and blah blah blah. But of course I think that's nonsense. This is why you get the message out there - it's impossible from the vantage point of a writer to know where everybody stands, but if you try to let people know that it was just a handful of idiots you can hopefully stop people who might be swayed by an anti-immigration message from getting swept up in that. I can understand how different kinds of people could feel alarmed in a situation like this

Fortunately we seem to have...some degree of success. mademan's second article is not so great news. this isn't so bad though.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgos called for residents to gather again Thursday  evening at Place de la Republique, the scene of a vast and mostly silent demonstration of solidarity on Wednesday. She also announced that the Eiffel Tower lights would be switched off to honor the victims of the chilling attack.

French citizens from a wide spectrum of age, ethnic and religious groups condemned the assault that has rocked the country.

"The tone has been very somber, " said Danite Airfane, 21, of Paris, an intern at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. "At the ICC we observed a moment of silence at noon."
...
"There were demonstrations in half of the city," Airfane said. "There were no Islamophobic currents in the demonstrations and solidarity for the families."

[George]

I love that we live in a corrupt world, where kids are starving, people die because they can't feed their families and these people put all their energy to kill people that write for a newspaper? Honestly, I get you dislike people's opinions, but holy shit, maybe if people like this put more time and effort in changing the world in ways that actually mattered.

It makes a bit sad, but we need to question why people would do this sort of stuff. Are they crazy? Are they just offended? I get offended and I don't muscle up and try to kill all the Nintendo fanboys.

 

[Sharky]

The problem, as far as I understand it is that at the end of the day there are passages in the Quran that tell it's followers to kill anyone who insults Islam, Allah or Mohammad... And there are people crazy enough to do it. I think THAT has to do with the mind set of the place they come from. It's not as if the Bible is any less violent and ridiculous... It's just that in Europe, America, Australia and the rest of the developer world were like;
'Yeah the bible tells us to stop masturbating, not eat seafood and go kill people... But tbh, Jerkin' it feels good, red lobster is the shit and I don't want to be in jail for murder when Shenmue 3 comes out.

Also nobody believes in Christianity anymore... So there's that... Thank fuck.

[crackdude]

The bible doesn't say any of those things.. It's doesn't incite people to kill eachother (although they do anyway).

Anyway, it's terrible that extremists (whatever their beliefs) do bullshit like this. But I also think it's bad idea to mock people known for being extremists.
These animals should be put down. But "freedom of speech" isn't a "I can say anything I want without consequences" card.

[Sharky]

These animals should be put down. But "freedom of speech" isn't a "I can say anything I want without consequences" card.

But that is exactly what freedom of speech is!

Sticks and stones (and crazy extremists) can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Freedom of speech is exactly that, it's the freedom to say anything without punishment. Is some of it tasteless? Does it insult? Does it upset? Maybe, but what is freedom of speech if not protecting the right of those of those who offend you!

If we start telling people 'you can't say that it's offensive' then that is a slippery slope, the cut off point becomes blurry. When exactly does something go from offensive to, tooooo offensive?



And yeah, Old Testaments regarding shell fish:
Leviticus 11:12
 Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.

[Sharky]

Double post but, this guy gets it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzO0Ob9lSzo