12 dead at the hands of gunmen.
Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier, 47, had received death threats in the past and was living under police protection.
French media have named the three other cartoonists killed in the attack as Cabu, Tignous and Wolinski. The attack took place during the magazine's daily editorial meeting.
At least seven people were wounded in the attack, with several in critical condition.
The satirical weekly has courted controversy in the past with its irreverent take on news and current affairs. It was fire-bombed in November 2011 a day after it carried a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.
Issues Pages:
Yes, it is extremely upsetting. #jesuischarlie - there will be a rally at Place de la République at 5pm Paris time (that is, it has already started) today.
If I may be excused for bringing in a purely personal element. My daughter is in Southern France, and the plan was for she and her partner to take a fairly extended trip to Morroco, by ferry from Algeciras.
Lord only knows in how many directions things are inflamed in France and North Africa. So I'm not thrilled about this trip.
For sure, Muslims in France, and anyone who 'looks like a Muslim,' will bear the brunt of this... and I cringe at the picture. But it wont be just Muslims, or just in France.
Definitely chewing on making the kind of phone call we generally stay away from.
I'd be beyond worried in your shoes, Ken. I hope she thinks better of that part of her trip.
I haven't always agreed with the way Charlie Hebdo has poked fun at Islam (although I can't say I don't agree with criticism of any religion), but this is horrific and there will be shock waves over it. I know some people in my line of work in Paris, it will be interesting to know how things are in Paris in the coming days and weeks.
I'm surprised this type of thing doesn't occur more often at news organizations, for any number of reasons.
I dont know. Sounds a bit sanguine about the "particularities" of this.
Sure, there is a lot of overblown paranoia about Islamist terrorists ready to pop up anywhere.
But really, in the 'Western' world we live in- do all the other semi-organized nutbars taken together rival the Islamists for what they are capable of?
And for the world we inhabit in our daily lives, state terror does not take out newsies as an example to others.
Paris Manhunt: 3 Gunmen At Large, 12 Shot Dead at Charlie Hebdo Offices (and vid)
http://rt.com/news/220603-manhunt-paris-charlie-hebdo/
"I took cover under a desk...they spoke perfect French...they said they were Al-Qaeda,' cartoonist Corine Rey, aka 'Coco', was quoted as saying by the weekly Humanite..."
Fatal Shooting at Charlie Hebdo HQ in Paris LIVE UPDATES
http://rt.com/news/220523-deadly-attack-french-newspaper/
1730 GMT: "An Islamic State (IS) militant praised the attack on the French satirical magazine: 'The lions of Islam have avenged our Prophet,' Abu Manab, who fights for IS insurgents in SYRIA, told Reuters via internet connection. 'These are our lions. It's the first drops - more will follow,' he said, speaking via an internet connection from SYRIA. He added that he and his fellow fighters are happy about the incident..."
Yes, Charlie Hebdo is often vulgar, in dubious taste, and macho. Lots to criticise there, but with the pen (and paintbrush, and computer), not with guns or knives...
ETA: More here. #jeSuisCharlie http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/heartbreaking-cartoons-from-artist...
Slideshow of cartoonists and rally in Paris at bottom of this page. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/07/charlie-hebdo-david-pope-cartoon...
Unionist mentioned Julius Streicher the other day.
On Charlie Hebdo
White supremacists have a staggering body count of their own, and limiting it to the 'Western world' gives a rather incomplete picture and rigs the game more than a little, doesn't it?
I'd say the takeaway from the Richard Seymour article is:
since that's pretty clear, and he could have just ended the article there. Not so much:
which is pretty ideologically loaded.
France Armed Terrorists That Struck Paris - by Tony Cartalucci
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ca/2015/01/france-armed-terrorists-that-st...
"Video that has emerged from the recent attack in Paris shows heavily armed militants expertly handling their military grade weapons with precision and discipline - clearly the recipients of military training.
Whichever flavor of 'Al Qaeda' they hail from, they are a product of the global network of terrorism the West has purposefully created and perpetuates to this day in order to carry out a war of terror upon their own citizenry as well as proxy wars against their enemies overseas.
Indeed, out of one side of President Hollande's mouth he would condemn the attacks in Paris, and out of the other continue calling for the arming and backing of the very networks this attack originated from in order to continue the campaign of violence and terror in Syria..."
This is not about race. It's about silencing ideas by a faction of theocratic fascists. It seems that combatting racism is taking a back seat to striking a blow on behalf of an imaginary entity.
You took me out of context: a specific reply to a comment by SJ, which at least implicitly was referring to attacks on newsies in "the West".
Full quote, and the context:
I dont know. Sounds a bit sanguine about the "particularities" of this.
Sure, there is a lot of overblown paranoia about Islamist terrorists ready to pop up anywhere.
But really, in the 'Western' world we live in- do all the other semi-organized nutbars taken together rival the Islamists for what they are capable of?
And for the world we inhabit in our daily lives, state terror does not take out newsies as an example to others.
Sorry, I didn't realize that it was a specific reply to SJ's post.
Yes, as George Galloway pointed out in the above quotation,
"Hypocrites like among others the French government which has been facilitating exactly such carnage, except daily, in Syria for the last four years. And through the agency of the very same kind of terrorists as murdered the French citizens today."
France, like Canada, has supported the very same political extremists in Syria ON A DAILY BASIS FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS. The "blowback" of supporting such extremists [and calling them "moderates"] is that now ISIL, etc., controls vast swaths of the territory of Iraq and Syria.
The difference is that the "nutbars" are our own governments and the deaths are far away from our shores.
Do you really want to get into valuing some lives more than others? This is what many political parties rely upon and why they can indulge in demagogic attempts to win votes over the dead bodies of others. [As long as those "others" are far away.]
further to the above, 'silencing ideas' and etc
The Bete Noire of the French Establishment - by Diana Johnstone
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/01/the-bete-noire-of-the-french-esta...
"French politicians and mainstream media are starting off the New Year with a shared resolution for 2014: permanently muzzle a Franco-African comedian who is getting to be too popular among young people.."
Juan Cole: Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris
I find calling Charlie Hebdo a "frankly racist publication" is over the top. They are very hard on all religious fundamentalists, whether violent anti-abortion nuts (usually Christian), ultraorthodox Jews and Muslim fundies, and are most certainly not soft on the Catholic Church. They have published cartoons that fall into "Orientalism" and othering, (and I have written in to give them MERDE about it) but being secularist per se is not racist or discriminatory as long as it is even-handed. Cabu published cartoons and bandes dessinées for decades attacking racist, homophobic, macho, reactionary bigots like his famous "Beauf" (short for beau-frère - brother-in-law and shorthand throughout the French-speaking world for that type of person). And always sympathetic to North Africans (Maghrebis) and Black people who were victims of racist violence.
Cabu was a senior, and Wolinski was 80 years old. http://zepworld.blog.lemonde.fr/2015/01/07/adieu-cabu-wolinski-tignous-c...
Indeed, Norway was exemplary in its trial and treatment of that horrible neofascist prick.
French militancy, including when it's been in cahoots with it's NATO partners of the willing, has been responsible for killing more innocent people around the world than you can shake a stick at. What we're seeing in the western media is another one of those 'they hate us for our freedom' events, as it's being spun already.
No, they hated them because they were mouthy. That should give anyone in journalism and related professions (as in writers or documentarians like myself) pause.
"Thoughts and prayers of entire community are with the people of France. We stand by them as they did us when we faced similar cowards." - Paul Calandra MP (CON)
Charlie Hebdo Paris Shooting: Canadian Politicians React
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting-canadian-po...
Thanks for that context lagatta!
The attackers displayed a degree of skill and calmness that comes only from advanced military training
from the Telegraph link:
Paris Attack on Charlie Hebdo: Gunmen Showed “Advanced Military Skills”
The article poses the following question: Trained killers sent by ISIS or a government?
At last count, I thought the western world's semi-organized nutbars had a hand in over 5000 killed in Eastern Ukraine alone. We could look at a number of countries to arrive at far worse statistics. The stark raving mad governments of the west outclasses them all when it comes to extremism. Their exploits are published every waking day all around the world. Even the coverage of this takes on a racist character, as in, some lives are given more prominence than other lives, which enables a western supremacist narrative to be maintained of being beseiged and infiltrated by enemies. We'll know all of the victims names soon enough, with a history of their lives laid before us in memoriam. Meanwhile, in some places mass funerals made necessary by drone strikes become opportunities for secondary targeting from afar.
Yes, obviously that does not mean they can't follow into "humanitarian imperialism". But these were typically people (at least the older ones; I'm less familiar with Charb's background, as he was a few years younger than I am) who were squarely on the left and anticolonialist.
"French militancy" (from below, and I presume one is speaking at least of the "liberal-democratic" left) and "French militarism" aren't synonyms, slumberjack. Of course France is a colonialist, capitalist power.
I hope you're just being sarcastic, Webgear.
Those reporters and police officers got what they deserve, why be concerned over them? They were all well past their prime and really didn't offer anything of substance to the world.
President Obama Defends Free Speech After Paris Attack
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/obama-free-speech-paris-attacks-11...
"The president's tone contrasts with his more tepid responses following previous extremist attacks.
'The fact that this was an attack on journalists, an attack on our free press, also underscores that these terrorists fear freedom of speech and freedom of the press..'
PM Netanyahu Comments on Paris Terrorist Attack (and vid)
http://www.cija.ca/israeli-politics-netanyahu-paris-terrorist-attack/
"The attacks of radical Islam know no boundaries - these are international attacks and the response has to be international. The terrorists want to destroy our freedoms and our civilization. And therefore, all the free countries and all the civilized societies have to band together to fight this scourge..."
It's all horrible lagatta. An explicit propaganda is at work within the emphasis being provided towards one set of victims over others who are barely mentioned at all. When corporate political hacks announce their horror and revulsion, and about how their hearts are going out to the families of the victims, the hypocrisy does turn the stomach.
Global military action gets categorized as such and falls within the domain and right of the global powers, while the term militancy is reserved for lesser entities. Propaganda is embedded in the choice of language and how things are described. If we erase those distinctions, then the term French 'militancy' corresponds to the actions of the French state on the global stage, regardless of what political flavour in France is actually calling the shots.
Coldest damn demo I have ever attended: minus 30 this evening outside the French Embassy in Ottawa for the vigil for #JeSuisCharlie.
Ottawa satirical magazine ‘Frank’ to publish ‘Charlie Hebdo’ cartoons
http://globalnews.ca/news/1760322/ottawa-satirical-magazine-frank-to-pub...
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/1/charlie-hebdo-gouaillesatir...
So one of the French cops killed in Charlie Hebdo attack was Muslim
#KillAllMuslims was created
@Lagatta:
Being horrified at the murder of journalists and cartoonists doesn't require me to praise their work
Also, Former CIA deputy director said that "This is Europe's worst terror attack since 2005." Forgot about Anders Breivik
Or is it "terror" only if done by Muslims?
Today's news will assert that a crazy, White outlier attempted to bomb an NAACP office, and that Islam carried out a terror attack in Paris
... and former chess champion, turned US State Department dissident, Kasparov has blamed Russian President Putin for "supporting terrorism" [see Kasparov's Facebook page] with today's attack.
I always assumed France WAS part of the so-called west
And there's this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-07/paris-attacks-part-of-battle-th...
http://cpj.org/attacks/
Slumberjack, I wasn't making a distinction between conservative and social-democratic governments in terms of "militarism" vs "militancy" To my sjmind "militancy" refers to civil society. Of course it could also be far-right, but so far they haven't popped up. Lots of militarism by recent Socialist Party governments, alas.
Sherpa-finn, I've taken part in even colder demos (union protests, and some of the 2003 anti-Iraq-war ones). Unfortunately I'm a bit down with a cold and a bad fall (nothing broken) hurt knee and ankle.
F you, Netanhayu...
Slumberjack, I wasn't making a distinction between conservative and social-democratic governments in terms of "militarism" vs "militancy" To my sjmind "militancy" refers to civil society. Of course it could also be far-right, but so far they haven't popped up. Lots of militarism by recent Socialist Party governments, alas.
Sherpa-finn, I've taken part in even colder demos (union protests, and some of the 2003 anti-Iraq-war ones). Unfortunately I'm a bit down with a cold and a bad fall (nothing broken) hurt knee and ankle.
F you, Netanhayu...
What a wonderful opportunity for rhetoric, John Kerry speaks forcefully of freedom of speech when in reality John Kirakou serves time for telling the world Usians are monstrous torturers.
I am saddened that bright minds and hearts left the world in such a way.
CH cartoonists are being lionized when satirists in the Middle East have led the way in mocking extremists and dictatorships for a very long time
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/in-the-mideast-as-in-france-satire-is-a-weapon-against-extremists/article22331032/
French President Hollande: "This is an act of exceptional barbarism."
Syrian President Assad: "That's not what you say when you send them to me."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This whole idea of "good" [as long as they kill designated enemies] and "bad" terrorists really needs to be thrown into the rubbish bin where it belongs. The Boston bombers were attacking Russia, therefore they were "good" ... until they attacked Boston. Then they became "bad" terrorists. And so on.
A Lucky Break in the Case?
https://twitter.com/AndreyPanevin/status/552948198919004161
'unverified reports that one of Charlie Hebdo terrorists dropped his ID at scene'
Terrorists Exposed?
https://twitter.com/Sevodnay/status/552909448428392450
"Video of #ParisShooting Gunmen heard speaking Russian at 00:12 secs."
Like everyone else, you leave out that I was responding to your SPECIFIC comment that you are surprised that there are not more such attacks on news organisations "for any number of reasons".
As if it is likely in the West that anybody might mount an attack like this. When/if that happens as frequently as was suggested, we will know we are REALLY in trouble- and that is true no matter how many people around the world already have to live with such threats of violence as part of their lives.
I'll check to see how philosophical you all are if the wars of the world come that close to home.
And I did preface my statement with "there is a lot of overblown paranoia about Islamist terrorists ready to pop up anywhere." And of course, whipping that up plays an ideological / propaganda role.
Paris Attack Quickly Becomes Washington Funding Fight (and vid)
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/07/politics/paris-attack-triggers-homeland-se...
"...The New York Republican told reporters on the Hill - 'But we have to make it clear that Homeland Security -- at a time we saw this massive attack in Paris -- that we can't be cutting funding or programs which would protect Americans from a terrorist attack..."
Some 30,000 Germans Protest Against Anti-Islam Rallies
http://news.yahoo.com/protests-4-german-cities-against-anti-islam-rallie...
Perfect timing...
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