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Rached Khiari
Chased Blogger
Murder of Samuel Paty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The murder of Samuel Paty, a French secondary school teacher, took place on 16 October 2020 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. Paty was killed and beheaded by an Islamist.
The perpetrator, Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov, an 18-year-old Russian Muslim refugee of Chechen ethnicity, killed and beheaded Paty with a cleaver, and was shot and killed by the police minutes later. A social media campaign against Paty was linked to his subsequent murder. One of Paty's students had alleged that; in a class on freedom of expression, he had shown his students Charlie Hebdo's 2012 cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, despite that fact that she was absent from the class that day. She alleged that one of the cartoons portrayed an image of the prophet Muhammad naked with his genitals exposed. Since then, ten people have been charged with conspiring with and assisting the killer, including an imam, a parent of a student, and two students at Paty's school.
French president Emmanuel Macron said that the incident was "a typical Islamist terrorist attack", and that "our compatriot was killed for teaching children freedom of speech". The murder was one of several attacks in France in recent years and the second terrorist attack in France during the 2020 trial, at which alleged accomplices to the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks were to be arraigned for terrorism targeting the cartoons' publishers. The Paty incident sparked debate in French society and politics. Many Muslims expressed offence at the cartoons, which were also the subject of the previous Charlie Hebdo shooting. The president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the murder, as did imams of several mosques. Several Muslim-majority countries, including Turkey, Iran, Jordan and Kuwait and leaders as well as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation denounced the attack and condemned the publication of the cartoons.
The response of the French government to this incident was criticized by many Muslims, including Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; some of whom called for a boycott of French goods. ...
Turkey; Erdoğan–Macron dispute
The position taken by Macron was condemned in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey by the dominant AK Party, the Nationalist Movement Party, the secular opposition Republican People's Party and the Iyi Party, though the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party did not sign the joint declaration condemning Macron's words.
Following actions and statements of French President Macron such as describing Islam as a religion "in crisis" worldwide, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan questioned Macron's mental health and called for a boycott of French goods. Erdoğan claimed Muslims in France were "subjected to a lynch campaign similar to that against Jews in Europe before World War II", and that "European leaders should tell the French president to stop his hate campaign". Erdoğan also attacked Macron personally, saying "Macron needs treatment on a mental level" and asked: "What's the problem of the individual called Macron with Islam and with the Muslims?" He continued: "What else can be said to a head of state who does not understand freedom of belief and who behaves in this way to millions of people living in his country who are members of a different faith?"
In response to Erdoğan's remarks, France recalled its ambassador to Turkey, and a presidential spokesperson said: "President Erdogan's comments are unacceptable. Excess and rudeness are not a method. We demand that Erdogan change the course of his policy because it is dangerous in every respect." In support of Macron, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said of Erdoğan's behaviour: "They are defamatory comments that are completely unacceptable, particularly against the backdrop of the horrific murder of the French teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist fanatic", while the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Heiko Maas, said Erdoğan's insulting language was "a particular low point". The Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, wrote that "personal insults do not help the positive agenda that the EU wants to pursue with Turkey", and the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, said his country "stands firmly with France and for the collective values of the European Union". The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was also supportive of Macron's position.
Responding to Erdoğan's insults, Macron published on Twitter a message in English, French, and Arabic, saying: "Our history is one of a battle against tyranny and fanaticisms. We will continue, … we respect all differences in a spirit of peace. We will never accept hate speech and we defend reasonable debate. We will continue. We hold ourselves always on the side of human dignity and universal values".
Charlie Hebdo, responding to Erdoğan's position, published a cartoon mocking the Turkish president on its front page on 27 October. Fahrettin Altun, Erdoğan's press secretary, said on Twitter that "We condemn this most disgusting effort by this publication to spread its cultural racism and hatred".
Other countries
After President Macron defended the publication of cartoons in a tribute to Paty, there were calls in some Muslim countries to boycott French products. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Malaysian government, and the Foreign Ministry of Morocco said that freedom of expression does not apply to insulting Islam or Muslims, and Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan said that Macron was promoting Islamophobia. Some French goods were removed from shops in Jordan, Kuwait, and Qatar, and hundreds of travel agencies in Kuwait suspended booking flights to France. Protests were also held in Bangladesh, Iraq, and Libya against Macron and his defense of the caricatures. ...
Tunisia Tunisia: An independent member of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People of Tunisia, Rached Khiari [fr], who was initially elected on a religious right-wing platform with al-Karama [fr], justified the attack on Facebook. The public prosecution service in Tunisia opened an investigation into his comments; the spokesman of the Court of First Instance [fr] in Tunis and deputy public prosecutor said the comments were classifiable as a crime of terrorism, as anti-terrorism legislation punishes the glorification or praise of terrorist attacks with a sentence of up to five years in prison. |