Also Charlie Hebdo stands in support of the protests in Iran and against the regime Tehran. The special issue of the French satirical weekly, published eight years after the attack on the newspaper’s headquarters and claimed by the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaedais dedicated to all those protesters who have been crowding Iranian squares for over four months to claim their freedoms. In the editorial titled The satirical drawing, supreme guide of freedomthe director Laurent Sourisseau alias Ress explained that with today’s edition he also wanted to remember Charb, Cabu, Bernard Maris, Wolinski, Tignous, Mustapha Ourrad, Honoré and Elsa Cayat: the 12 journalists killed in the attack on January 7, 2015when two masked individuals armed with AK-47s opened fire on employees shouting ” Allahu Akbarin response to the publication by the magazine of some satirical cartoons portraying the prophet of Islam Mohammed.
“It was a way of showing our support for Iranian men and women who are risking their lives to defend their freedom against the theocracy that has oppressed them since 1979. It was also a way of remembering that the reasons why the cartoonists and editors of Charlie, eight years ago, are unfortunately still current. Those who refuse to submit to the dictates of religions risk paying for it with their lives. What would Charb, Cabu, Bernard Maris, Wolinski, Tignous, Mustapha Ourrad, Honoré and Elsa Cayat have thought today seeing what is happening in Iran? No one can say it, but we can imagine it,” it reads.
There Call to action
On December 8, Charlie Hebdo – who recently ended up on the Iranian sanctions black list – had launched a competition of caricatures on the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic, the most important political and religious figure in the country. “Drawers and cartoonists must support the Iranian people fighting for their freedom by ridiculing this religious leader from another era, and sending him back to the dustbin of history,” read the text of the contest, entitled #MullahsGetOut (Mullah go away). In addition to thousands of threats, explains Riss, about 300 cartoons arrived in the newsroom, mainly from Iranian refugees abroad to escape the regime. Of these, the director of the magazine announced that he had selected 35 and the “most original and most effective” ones were published in the special issue. In some of the cartoons – contested by Tehran – the supreme leader is stoned to death by some women. Others show Khamenei drowning in a pool of blood as he tries to save himself by holding on to a noose. In another cartoon, theayatollah Khamenei is depicted with a vagina around his face or wearing a turban with a lit fuse.
Each cartoon, however, has something in common: “They have the merit of having challenged the authority that the alleged supreme guide claims to represent,” Riss reiterated in his editorial. Furthermore, no prize was foreseen for the winners, who had their works published in the satirical magazine. The decision was taken because «assigning a first, second and third place would have meant devaluing the other designs. And then, what reward could be up to the courage to say no to religious tyrants? However, there is one that no one can buy or give away, for the simple reason that it is priceless: freedom, quite simply». Finally, on the cover of the special issue, the same director of Charlie Hebdo has drawn a supine and naked woman, with blue hair, who spreads her legs and makes disappear inside her vagina a row of mullah: «Mollahs, retournez d’où vous venez!translated: “Mullah, go back to where you came from!”
The Wrath of Tehran
The number published today by the French satirical magazine has unleashed the ire of the Iranian authorities who, through the foreign ministry Hossein Amirabdollahian they have made it known that they “do not allow the French government to cross the limits,” reads the tweet. «They have chosen – continues the minister – the wrong path. We recently imposed sanctions on Charlie Hebdo. We will respond decisively and effectively to this insulting and rude move by the French periodical”.
Cover photo: CHARLIE HEBDO | One of the winners of the international competition
Read on about Open
Read also:
