Teacher Beheaded In France After Showing Prophet Cartoons: Here's What We Know So Far

A man has been "assassinated" in an "Islamist terror attack" in a Paris suburb "because he was a teacher who taught freedom of expression", France's president has said. The history teacher, who is said to have discussed images of the Prophet Muhammad with his pupils, was beheaded, it has been reported.

AFP

What do we know about what happened?

A man wielding a large knife attacked the teacher in a street in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in France, cutting off his head. A police source said that witnesses had heard the attacker shout "Allahu Akbar", or "God is Greatest" at around 5:00pm local time, the Reuters news agency reported. The attacker then ran off, but local police alerted by the public were quickly at the scene. The suspected attacker was then shot dead about 600 metres from the scene, according to the AP news agency.

Reuters

Who was the victim?

The victim, a teacher of history and geography, had been talking in class about freedom of expression in connection with the Charlie Hebdo attack case. He was talking about the Muhammad cartoons, which caused uproar among some Muslims when the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo published them back in 2015. The teacher had reportedly advised Muslim students to leave the room if they thought they might be offended. Earlier this month, some Muslim parents complained to the school about the teacher's decision to use one or more of the cartoons as part of a discussion about the Charlie Hebdo trial, French media report.

AFP

About Charlie Hebdo case

On 7 January 2015 at about 11:30am CET local time, two brothers, Sa?d and Ch¨¦rif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others. It happened after the newspaper published a caricature of Prophet Muhammad on its cover.

The teacher was explaining the case that is currently under trial. The megatrial had started on September 2 under heavy police protection and the proceedings are scheduled to last until November 10.

AP

Reacting to Friday's attack, Charlie Hebdo tweeted: "Intolerance just reached a new threshold and seems to stop at nothing to impose terror in our country." France has seen a wave of Islamist violence since the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, including famous cartoonists.

L¡¯intol¨¦rance vient de franchir un nouveau seuil et ne semble reculer devant rien pour imposer sa terreur ¨¤ notre pays. Seule la d¨¦termination du pouvoir politique et la solidarit¨¦ de tous mettront en ¨¦chec cette id¨¦ologie fasciste.

¡ª Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) October 16, 2020

Past attacks

In July 2020, a man accused of blasphemy in Pakistan had been shot dead in a courtroom during his trial in the northern city of Peshawar. He had been facing charges for allegedly claiming to be a prophet. The victim, Tahir Ahmad Naseem, was accused of blasphemy in 2018 by a teenager, madrassa student from Peshawar. Naseem had struck up an online conversation with him whilst living in the United States in 2018.

His fault: He claimed to be a prophet himself

In January 2011, the influential governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, died after being shot multiple times by one of his bodyguards in the capital, Islamabad.

His fault: Defending a Christian woman sentenced to death, who was accused of blasphemy after an argument with co-workers while harvesting berries

A few months later in March, two Taliban gunmen shot dead Pakistan's minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, an advocate of reform of the country's blasphemy laws in 2011. They sprayed the Christian minister's car with gunfire, striking him at least eight times, before scattering pamphlets that described him as a "Christian infidel". The leaflets were signed "Taliban al-Qaida Punjab".

His fault: Demanding reform in Pakistan's blasphemy laws