Charlie Hebdo issue No. 1178
The publication sparked protests by Muslim demonstrators in Yemen, Pakistan, Mauritania, Algeria, Mali, Senegal, Niger, Chechnya, and other countries.
The Charlie Hebdo offices had suffered a terrorist attack on 7 January 2015 in which twelve died, including the editor and several core contributors.
On 9 January 2015, the staff and occasional contributors gathered in a room in the offices of the newspaper Libération and were lent computers from Le Monde.
[8] The print run was the highest ever for the French press; the previous record was 2.2 million for an issue of France-Soir on the death of Charles de Gaulle.
The issue was subtitled C'est reparti ("Here we go again"), which new publishing director Riss stated was to show the publication had "returned to life" ("La vie reprend").
[17] In the editorial, editor-in-chief Gérard Biard called for full secularism (laïcité) and regretted that the defense of Charlie Hebdo against previous threats and arson had often been half-hearted.
Describing the magazine as atheist, Biard wrote that the church bells of Notre Dame de Paris ringing for Charlie Hebdo had made the staff laugh.
[17] Another by Catherine Meurisse shows child labourers making Je suis Charlie T-shirts with a text reading: "At the same time in Bangladesh: We stand by you with all our hearts.
Walter Foolz draws attention to tragedies of greater scale the same week; in the cartoon, one of Boko Haram's followers declares to another that "that's 2,000 subscribers that Charlie Hebdo won't get", referring to the number of fatalities at the Baga massacre in Nigeria.
"[22] The Norwegian journalist Anders Giæver gave the cover a "die throw" of six out of six pips in a review in VG titled: "Touché Charlie", writing "So good.
"[23] Editorial writer Sanna Rayman in Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet found the cover to be an elegant balancing act which combined forgiving reconciliation with determination to assert their right of satirising whomever they want.
He had higher praise for the cartoons made in response to the shootings, in particular those by Sattouf, whose strip he called "Street-level Voltaire wittily written in sociolect"; Walter Foolz, for his international perspective; and the rejected-covers feature on the back page.
[26] The publication of a new Muhammad cartoon was widely criticized in Muslim-majority countries, including by the Jordanian Ad-Dustour, the Saudi-Arabian Al Watan, and the Turkish Yeni Akit.
[25] Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard denied the cover implied the murderers should be absolved of their crimes, and rejected accusations of racism, Islamophobia, and provocation of Muslims by Charlie Hebdo.
[17][27] The leading Egyptian religious institution Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah denounced the issue, saying it "deepens hatred and discrimination between Muslims and others" and called on French political leaders to condemn what it considered Charlie Hebdo's "racist act which works to incite sectarianism".
[29] On 15 January, Belgian police launched a fatal raid on terror suspects who were alleged to be plotting attacks on vendors selling the issue.
[35] Muslim crowds demonstrating against Muhammad's depiction attacked and set alight French businesses and churches with incendiary devices in Niamey;[36] and five deaths were reported.
[40] In Algiers and Jordan, protesters clashed with police, but there were non-violent demonstrations against the cartoon in Khartoum, Sudan, Russian Muslims in north Caucasus region of Ingushetia, and several other African countries – Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania.
