A cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo says that terror attacks are “the worst caricature” of religion, not pictures that appear in a satirical magazine.
Zineb El-Rhazoui, a cartoonist at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, made the comments during a Montreal event organized by the Association Humaniste du Quebec.
El-Rhazoui said work will continue at the magazine despite a horrifying shooting attack earlier this month that left 10 of the magazine’s staff dead. Millions of dollars have come in from supporters since Jan. 7, when gunmen stormed the publication’s offices and gunned down 10 staff and a policeman guarding an editor.
A second officer was killed in the street outside the paper’s office.
El-Rhazoui said the worldwide outpouring of support won’t bring back the journalists who lost their lives that day, and their lives were too high a price to pay for freedom of expression.
She told attendees at Monday’s event that it is terrorists, and not cartoonists, who make the bigger mockery of religion.
“This is the most ugly caricature, that this is the most ugly picture of their religion,” El-Rhazoui said. “It is not the pictures made by Charlie Hebdo.”
Representatives from the Association Humaniste du Quebec expressed concern that an attack like the one on the Charlie Hebdo offices could occur in Canada as the debate over freedom of speech and freedom of religion heats up.
With a report from CTV Montreal’s Denise Roberts
