The ministry of foreign affairs tweeted: “Such a deliberate act to offend the sentiments of billions of Muslims cannot be justified as an exercise in press freedom or freedom of expression. On Tuesday, Pakistan condemned the decision to republish the cartoon. Most of the 11 who will appear in court have said they knew the actions were for a crime but claimed they had no idea they were for mass killings. The defendants, three of whom are being tried in absentia and may have been killed in Syria, face various charges, including supplying weapons and providing logistical support for the attacks.
Prophet artoon trial#
The trial of 14 alleged accomplices over the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the killing of a female police officer the following day, and an attack at a kosher supermarket two days later, will open on Wednesday. “All of that, just for this,” reads the frontpage headline. These were reprinted by Charlie Hebdo in 2006, sparking anger across the Islamic world.Ī central cartoon on the cover was drawn by Jean Cabut – known as Cabu – a celebrated cartoonist who was killed in the attack. The cover shows cartoons first published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005. We will never give up,” Charlie Hebdo’s director, Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, wrote in an editorial to go with the republication of the cartoons in its latest edition, to be released on Wednesday. Many noted that the award-winning South African political cartoonist, whose pen has repeatedly and poignantly exposed corrupt politicians and various hypocrisies in the public sphere, could have been far harsher if he wished.Īs Dawes said: “If we had to pull every Zapiro cartoon that offended someone we wouldn’t have any Zapiro cartoons in the newspaper.“We will never lie down. However, he also noted that had the cartoon been in any way Islamophobic, or crossed the line in terms of hate speech and racism, he would not have published it.īut Zapiro’s cartoons, he said, offend many people. “My view is no cartoon is as insulting to Islam as the assumption Muslims will react with violence.” “The M&G is a platform for debate,” Dawes emphasised, adding that everyone was welcome to engage in debate and discussion with the paper. While the council was unhappy with the court’s decision, it agreed to meet Dawes to take the discussion forward. “We very much saw that as a threat, and our counsel vigorously objected,” said Dawes. It added that while it wouldn’t advocate violence, it couldn’t necessarily guarantee that there wouldn’t be any. It presented verbal evidence, but the judge ruled the interdict failed in terms of urgency, as the newspaper was already available in some outlets and the cartoon had already been published on the M&G Online.ĭuring Thursday’s application the council repeatedly raised the spectre of a violent backlash, saying that the timing of the cartoon was bad because of a possible threat to the Soccer World Cup. However, the council, or Jamiatul Ulama as it is also known, failed to provide the necessary papers for the M&G to answer. “He asked for an undertaking that we would stop distribution of the paper and remove the cartoon.”ĭawes pointed out that this was impossible, and that in any event the M&G would not do so.īy 11.30pm the newspaper’s advocate had been pulled out of a dinner party and Dawes, along with the paper’s investigation unit, found himself in the South Gauteng High Court ready to defend the M&G‘s right to freedom of speech. This week Pakistan ordered all internet service providers to block Facebook, as well as YouTube for carrying “un-Islamic content”.ĭawes recounted how he received a call from an attorney from the council at about 8.30pm on Thursday night - after the distribution process of the Friday paper had begun. When Dawes first saw the cartoon he said he thought it “a gentle and irreverent poke” at the hysteria that had greeted the Facebook page.
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