Charlie Hebdo: Gun Attack On French Magazine Kills 12

[Jeevan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-30710777

Europe

7 January 2015 Last updated at 17:45 Charlie Hebdo: Gun attack on French magazine kills 12

Gunmen have shot dead 12 people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an apparent militant Islamist attack.

Four of the magazine's well-known cartoonists, including its editor, were among those killed, as well as two police officers.

A major police operation is under way to find three gunmen who fled by car.

President Francois Hollande said there was no doubt it had been a terrorist attack "of exceptional barbarity".

It is believed to be the deadliest attack in France since 1961, when right-wingers who wanted to keep Algeria French bombed a train, killing 28 people.

The masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles in the office and exchanged shots with police in the street outside before escaping by car. They later abandoned the car in Rue de Meaux, northern Paris, where they hijacked a second car.

Death threats

Witnesses said they heard the gunmen shouting "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" and "God is Great" in Arabic ("Allahu Akbar").

The number of attackers was initially reported to be two, but French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve later said security services were hunting three "criminals". He said that Paris had been placed on the highest alert.

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, as well as Charlie Hebdo contributor and French economist Bernard Maris.

The attack took place during the magazine's daily editorial meeting.

At least four people were critically wounded in the attack.

The satirical weekly has courted controversy in the past with its irreverent take on news and current affairs. It was firebombed in November 2011 a day after it carried a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

Global condemnation

The latest tweet on Charlie Hebdo's account was a cartoon of the Islamic State militant group leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Charlie Hebdo's website, which went offline during the attack, is showing the single image of "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie) on a black banner, referring to a hashtag that is trending on Twitter in solidarity with the victims.

People had been "murdered in a cowardly manner", President Hollande told reporters at the scene. "We are threatened because we are a country of liberty," he added, appealing for national unity.

French government officials are holding an emergency meeting, and President Hollande is due to give a televised address later.

US President Barack Obama has condemned the "horrific shooting", offering to provide any assistance needed "to help bring these terrorists to justice".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: "It was a horrendous, unjustifiable and cold-blooded crime. It was also a direct assault on a cornerstone of democracy, on the media and on freedom of expression."

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said in a tweet: "The murders in Paris are sickening. We stand with the French people in the fight against terror and defending the freedom of the press."

The Arab League and Al-Azhar mosque, Egypt's top Islamic institution, have also condemned the attack.

Analysis: Hugh Schofield, BBC News, Paris

Charlie Hebdo is part of a venerable tradition in French journalism going back to the scandal sheets that denounced Marie-Antoinette in the run-up to the French Revolution.

The tradition combines left-wing radicalism with a provocative scurrility that often borders on the obscene. Its decision to mock the Prophet Muhammad in 2011 was entirely consistent with its historic raison d'etre.

The paper has never sold in enormous numbers - and for 10 years from 1981, it ceased publication for lack of resources.

But with its garish front-page cartoons and incendiary headlines, it is an unmissable staple of newspaper kiosks and railway station booksellers.

Charlie Hebdo and its satirical role

Live updates

'Blood everywhere'

Footage shot by an eyewitness outside the magazine's office shows two armed men dressed in black approach a wounded police officer lying on a pavement. One of the men shoots the officer in the head, before both men are seen running back towards a black vehicle and driving away.

Eyewitnesses described seeing two black-hooded men entering the building carrying Kalashnikovs, with reports of up to 50 shots fired.

Gilles Boulanger, who works in the same building as the office, told French TV channel Itele: "There were several shots heard in the building from automatic weapons firing in all directions. So then we looked out of the window and saw the shooting was on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, with the police. It was really upsetting. You'd think it was a war zone."

Wandrille Lanos, a TV reporter who works across the road, was one of the first people to enter the Charlie Hebdo office after the attack.

"As we progressed into the office, we saw that the number of casualties was very high. There was a lot of people dead on the floor, and there was blood everywhere," he told the BBC.

After the attack, which occurred at about 10:30 GMT, police warned French media outlets to be on alert and pay attention to security.

The country was already on the alert for Islamist militant attacks after several incidents just before Christmas.

Cars were driven at shoppers in two cities, Dijon and Nantes, and police were attacked by a man wielding a knife in Tours.

While the French government denied the attacks were linked, it announced plans to further raise security in public spaces, including the deployment of about 300 soldiers.

Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 sparking riots in Muslim countries, says it has stepped up security in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack.

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[JagsawSingh]

Remember what I said in the 'Visiting Paris' thread 2 months ago ?

I said :

The thing about Paris is that they are getting away with an unofficial apartheid system. The city is largely black and Arab but Paris has a system whereby they deliberately house (hide) all the blacks and Arabs in purpose made suburbs (ghettos) and let them get on with life on state handouts without the chance of ever finding a job etc.

The city has the feel of New York in the 1970's and London in the 1980's...a very edgy feel, a feeling that racial tension is in the air and could explode at any time.

http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?/topic/76106-visiting-paris-advise/

[jkvlondon]

current news is that the two brothers who I think are of Algerian descent have taken a hostage in the countryside outside paris ...there is a police siege.

[jkvlondon]

latest news

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/09/charlie-hebdo-manhunt-kouachi-terrorist-links-live-updates

[jkvlondon]

The sieges are over the two shooters from the Charlie attack are dead , there has been fatalities also at another location ...looks like the cells are waking up

Mi5 warning of possible British attacks

http://www.itv.com/news/2015-01-08/al-qaida-terrorists-planning-mass-casualty-attacks-against-the-west-m15-boss-warns/

[DailyMail]

Jagsaw,

I was thinking exactly that. As I watched the news, I recalled those posts on here a few months ago!

But I think the difference here is, in yesteryear, local authorities and governments were struggling with integrating groups along ethnic and racial lines. What you have now is Saudi Arabian funded wahhabi islamist ideology coupled with social deprivation, unemployment, disenfranchised youth and cultural disconnection. All it takes is a charismatic imaam to brainwash these lost souls and you have and the security services have a nightmare on their hands,

[Ranjeet01]

There are plenty of wealthy, well educated Muslim youth that get radicalised as well. Plenty of radicalisation going on in university campuses as well.Let's not use poverty and deprivation as the only reason for this.

[jkvlondon]

There are plenty of wealthy, well educated Muslim youth that get radicalised as well. Plenty of radicalisation going on in university campuses as well.Let's not use poverty and deprivation as the only reason for this.

what I see is supermachismo of young males paired up with a culture of aggression ...I mean we went to buy fish for the little one and a group of four muslim lads trundled in and they made a beeline for the red-bellied piranha...it made me smile bcos they didn't know word one about anything but that was the only choice they wanted to get 'man I'm gonna feed them real meat' blah blah blah ...

I guess they need to prove how tough they are in every sphere ... I think it must be so exhausting ...

[superkaur]

I have a few views on this matter

1) The killing of 12 unarmed civilians who just created cartoons no matter how vile can never be justified and is absolutely an evil crime.

2) There is a video on the internet that states within 30years Muslims will have enough majority to form a government in France. Western Europe has a serious Muslim demographics problem that poses an ideological threat to their nations way of life. Islam culturally cant exist with other cultures and ways of life thats a given every non-muslim knows this. The problem is how to get them out of europe or make them change their religion is what the powers that be are not overtly trying to sort out. So all sort of schemes will be created in next few years to ensure survival of western world vs the islamic demographic time boomb that is coming in the near future that can sway enough votes to elect an islamic government.

3) Also there is no such thing as freedom of speech these french cartoonists that mock religion they are mocking religions to be viciously provocative yet if they create images of pro-pedo stuff or pro-woman bashing or pro-killing then they will arrested so where is the absolutely freedom of speech and expression then? Why does the UK and USA arrest and jail trolls who just post racist nonsense on social media against jews, blacks, asians, whites, politicians and individuals?

Where is their right of freedom of speech and expression? Because cartoons demonising jews as rich banksters created by the nazis in germany led to the german population to hate on the whole jewish community and in turn lead to world war 2.....there was race riots in 1970s/80s due to racist speeches ./ expressions by white people against minorities which lead to anti-racist legislation. So there is not such thing as absolute right to free speech and expression its subjectively in regards to the population of the nation.

4) Western governments aid despotic and authoritarian regimes aboard with covert deals in the desert, financially aid packages to keep their puppets in power in order to have the control and power over resources of foreign lands. Which creates unstable people of that region determined to take up arms against the western countries that brought death and destruction to their people.

5) Everyone intelligent now knows these days that the evil corrupt banksters are the ones who fund Western government politicians who in turn fund jihadi islamic terrorist groups by paying off mullahs by proxy via militry intelligence agents. And the jihadi's in turn does the bidding of paid of islamic leader mullah. So the leader of these organisations takes orders on what act the western government wants them to commit in order to create pretext for foreign wars and invasions to steal resources of foreign lands and as an added bonus to take away your civil liberties and human rights via undemocratic secret trails and intrusive surveillance legislations.

[JagsawSingh]

There are plenty of wealthy, well educated Muslim youth that get radicalised as well. Plenty of radicalisation going on in university campuses as well.Let's not use poverty and deprivation as the only reason for this.

Not just 'plenty' Ranjeet, MOST radical extremist Muslims in the west are highly educated. In fact, one of the things that sticks in my mind the most is the media aftermath after the London subway bombings. British and international news crews were, en masse, up in Leeds in the 'Asian' areas doing live broadcasts from the streets and they were talking about 'poverty' and 'no education' of the local muslim youth. On one particular live broadcast the presenter was talking about 'uneducation' totally oblivious to the grafitti on the wall in the distance behind him. The grafitti, written by the local Muslims said "I am, therefore I Kill".

I was watching the live broadcast and I thought to myself how stupid are the elite (powers) in my nation when my government, highly paid news anchors, highly paid news cameramen and highly paid news editors don't have the education to understand whats been written behind them and yet supposedly 'badly educated' and deprived Muslim youths could have been so well read they were able to distort the philosophical writings of Descartes so cleverly.

So no, its not about education. My original point was merely about the endemic problems Paris faces in terms of a very restless non-white majority. There is no other way to describe it other than urban apartheid. The 'suburbs' they have created have not been created in the same way as our suburbs in English speaking countries, where they are places for hard-working people to work hard and buy houses etc. No, in Paris the suburbs are more akin to south african townships : A place to place your non-French, where they can do what they want, kill and rob who they want, deal and take drugs all they want. Remember now, this is a country where it is as good as impossible to bring a race discrimination case because French Law does not 'officialy' recognise any race other than French (i.e white, black and brown...as long as you embrace french values)

Good....as long as they don't bring any of it into white Paris.

But, by very definition, pressure cookers will explode once the pressure gets too much. Thats why Paris regularly burns every now and then, more so than any other western city. But when it burns, just as London did in 2011, due process...the hallmark of a democracy...goes out the window. They (the government and their lackeys in the media) justify their actions and their response in the name of democracy knowing that you (the public) are too stupid to notice that it is in actual fact your govt (and their lackeys in the media) that have shat upon the very essence of democracy : Due Process.

Thats why, in London for example, thousands of people could have been arrested, brought before a judge, judged and be given 6 month prison sentences for stealing a £1 bottle of water from the £ store....all in the space of 24 hours.

But we don't question it. We don't question it because we let them manipulate our minds. And we're letting them manipulate our minds today. They're saying "are you on the side of democracy or terrorism". We, the public, of course say democracy. And they say, well, you must be je suis charlie. You're either je suis charlie or you're a terrorist sympathiser....acording to our governments and our media.

So where does that leave us Sikhs...who stand for the truth ?

I'll tell you where I stand. My heart lies with the loved ones of the terrorist attack in Paris. I grieve for them and I stand with them as fellow humans who have suffered. But I am NOT je suis charlie.

Je Sikh. Je non suis charlie. Je suis VERITE !!

But thats not enough is it ?

No. 99% of us don't live in any of of those 3 alpha cities that set and control the universe.

I do.....but most of us live in cities that hope and pray, one day, to be up there with the 3 alpha cities of this uniiverse : Paris, London and New York.

Scores of poeple die in an earthquake/ tornado inn Idaho or Alberta and it means nothing.

Man sneezes and loses his hankie in London, Paris and New York and as a result of this gold and oil prices rise in the rest of the world.