Three days after the republication, in one of Charlie Hebdo, of the cartoons of Mohammed which had caused an outcry in 2006, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris gives his support with chosen words to the satirical newspaper.
In a column published this Saturday on the Figaro website, Chems-eddine Hafiz hopes that Charlie Hebdo “continues to use his art”, taking the opposite view of the protests of Muslims around the world.
This speech comes in the context of the holding, since Wednesday, of the trial of the attacks of January 2015, which had notably claimed the lives of 12 people in the premises of the newspaper.
“May Charlie Hebdo continue to write, draw, use its art and above all live.
May the drama that struck this publication, the police officers and our Jewish compatriots serve as a lesson to the national community, but also to those who claim to be of Islam, to those who call themselves
friends of Muslims
and who do not clearly condemn these terrorist crimes: how the murder of cartoonists advanced the cause of Muslims?
And how can destruction and barbarism serve the image of Islam?
», He asks.
In this same forum, Chems-eddine Hafiz also explains his decision to prosecute, in 2006 and as a lawyer, Philippe Val, director of the publication of Charlie Hebdo, for having published the cartoons.
"Many have reproached us for it […] I want to explain this today, because the Great Mosque of Paris, which has always defended republican principles, was at no time nourished by a desire to prohibit irreverence, to condemn blasphemy or censor cartoonists, ”he writes.
"In our country, only the law sets the limits"
The one who succeeded Dalil Boubakeur in January 2020 as rector of the Great Mosque of Paris and is also vice-president of the French Council of Muslim Worship explains having decided to prosecute Charlie Hebdo because of the particular "national and international context", fact violent demonstrations against the weekly in Muslim countries and "community tension" in France.
"Our action aimed, above all, to pull the rug out from under the feet of extremist circles and to channel the debate towards the courtrooms so that it does not take place in the street", argues Hafiz Chems-eddine.
“Our action was that of French citizens who wanted to use a constitutional right.
It was a way for us to prove our integration when extremist circles wanted to use violence and bring discord in the public space, not without manipulating and instrumentalizing the youth and the most fragile and malleable minds ”, adds- he.
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Hafiz Chems-eddine also wishes “that all Muslims - and those who seek to infantilize them - understand the cultural traditions of satire and democratic space which allows all expressions even those that seem excessive.
In our country, only the law sets the limits ”.