Activists seeking violence just need a pretext, said slain Charlie Hebdo editor Charbonnier

Paris, Jan 8: Stephane Charbonnier, the editor and cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo, who was killed along with 11 others in an armed attack at the magazine's office in Paris on Wednesday, was known to be a fearless individual who preferred to die standing rather living on his knees. [12 killed in Paris shooting]

Charbonnier or Charb as he was popularly known, had once told French evening daily Le Monde that he didn't feel he was killing anybody with his pen or putting lives at risk. [Charlie Hebdo attack- Mickey Mouse project failed, but inspiration lingers on]

He felt activists seeking a pretext to justify violence would always find it. He also said that he wanted to make a mockery of Islam till it became as banal as Catholicism, a report in Scroll .in said.

Reports said the attack on the magazine that also left four persons injured was a revenge against Charlie Hebdo's poking fun at Islam. The magazine has in the past depicted Prophet Muhammad on its cover saying "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter".

The cover then got hacked but Charlie Hebdo continued with its work. It has showed a Muslim man kissing a male cartoonist and France getting a Muslim president in 2022 with a caricature of the author saying "in 2022, I will celebrate Ramadan."
Charbonnier, 47, never gave up his work regardless of whom it might annoy and had also been provided with a police bodyguard who was alos killed in Wednesday's attack.

In 2011, after Charlie Hebdo released a spoof inviting Muhammad to be its guest editor after the victory of an Islamist party in Tunisian elections, its Paris headquarters was firebombed and riot police were also deployed to guard its offices. Charbonnier also lived under police protection and featured on Al Qaeda's hitlist. [Al-Qaeda rereleases hit list with slain Charlie Hebdo editor struck out]

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