A
French satirical magazine, Chalie Hebdo had it hot 10:30 pm GMT as gunmen set
off barrage of bullets on the staff of the company. An attack found to be
carried out by Islamic fundamentalists who were not comfortable with the company’s
publications especially, their satirical cartoons.
Cartoonists respond to the development
Four of the magazine's
well-known cartoonists, including its editor, were among those killed, as well
as two police officers. A major police operation is under way to find three
gunmen who fled by car.
French
police have issued arrest warrants for brothers Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said
Kouachi, 34, AFP says. They have appealed to the public for information but
warned that the men were "likely armed and dangerous".
Cherif Kouachi (l) is 32, and his brother Said is 34.
Death
toll has risen to 12 as at the time of this report. Several others were
mortally wounded. This is said to be the deadliest attack in France since 1961,
when right-wingers who wanted to keep Algeria French bombed a train, killing 28
people.
The
magazine known
for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, as
well as critical depictions of Catholics, Jews and French politicians, the
magazine regularly stirred controversy.
Charlie
Hebdo gained notoriety in 2006 for its portrayal of a sobbing Muhammad, under
the headline "Mahomet débordé par les intégristes" ("Muhammad
overwhelmed by fundamentalists"). Within its pages, the magazine published
12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, bringing unprecedented condemnation from
the Muslim world. The French Council for the Muslim Faith eventually sued the weekly for the cartoon. The issue
has since been considered the one which positioned Charlie Hebdo as a target
for terrorist attacks.
Five
of those murdered have so far been named.
They
are the magazine’s editor and cartoonist, Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb; Bernard Maris, an
economist and writer on the board of Charlie Hebdo; and three more cartoonists:
Jean Cabu, Georges Wolinski and
Bernard Verlhac, known as Tignous.
Ban
Ki-moon, the UN
secretary general, called the Charlie Hebdo attack a “direct assault on
democracy, media and freedom of expression”. He went on:
“We
stand with the government and people of France … This horrific attack is meant
to divide. We must not fall into that trap. This is a moment for solidarity …We
must stand against the forces of division and hate.”
People
had been "murdered in a cowardly manner", President Hollande told
reporters at the scene. "We are threatened because we are a country of
liberty," he added, appealing for national unity.
US
President Barack Obama has condemned the "horrific shooting",
offering to provide any assistance needed "to help bring these terrorists
to justice".
Wandrille
Lanos, a TV reporter who works across the road, was one of the first people to
enter the Charlie Hebdo office after the attack.
"As
we progressed into the office, we saw that the number of casualties was very
high. There was a lot of people dead on the floor, and there was blood
everywhere," he told the BBC.
Alexandra
Topping reports on
the latest on the search for three attackers who are still at large:
“Some
3000 officers are now on the streets of Paris. Police have impounded and are
currently carrying out a forensic examination of the black Citroen getaway car,
which was found in the nearby 19th district in north-eastern Paris.”
Le
Monde is reporting that the Paris prosecutor François Molins will hold a press
conference at 17.45 Paris time to give an update on the attack and the hunt to
find the assailants.
Crowds are gathering in the
centre of Paris and elsewhere in support of Charlie Hebdo and those killed
and injured, with many carrying signs declaring #JeSuisCharlie.
Charlie
Hebdo's website, which went offline during the attack, is showing the single
image of "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie) on a black banner,
referring to a hashtag that is trending on Twitter in solidarity with the
victims.
In a
moving tribute to his slain former colleagues, the former
Charlie Hebdo publisher Phillipe Val, who has also been
director of France Inter, said he had lost all his friends:
“They
were so alive, they loved to make people happy, to make them laugh, to give
them generous ideas. They were very good people. They were the best among us,
as those who make us laugh, who are for liberty ... They were assassinated, it
is an insufferable butchery. “We cannot let silence set in, we need help. We
all need to band together against this horror. Terror must not prevent joy,
must not prevent our ability to live, freedom, expression – I’m going to use
stupid words – democracy, after all this is what is at stake. It is this kind
of fraternity that allows us to live. We cannot allow this, this is an act of
war. It might be good if tomorrow, all newspapers were called Charlie Hebdo. If
we titled them all Charlie Hebdo. If all of France was Charlie Hebdo. It would
show that we are not okay with this. That we will never let stop laughing. We
will never let liberty be extinguished.”
Here are some of the controversial Charlie Hebdo cartoons
The Sobbing Muhammad
On Catholic Church, Jews and Muslim
In 2011, headlined by a cartoon reading "100 lashes if you don't die of
laughter," an issue invited Muhammad to be a "guest editor" for the
weekly. The Charlie Hebdo offices were firebombed following its
publication.
Charlie Hebdo's website was hacked following a 2011 cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as gay.
In a more recent issue, the magazine published a cartoon depicting a member of the Islamic State group beheading Muhammad.
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