Charlie Hebdo to print Wednesday with cartoons of Muhammad

Distributor plans to print three million copies of satirical weekly in act of defiance after fatal attack on editorial office

By AFP and ToI Staff 12 January 2015, 11:19 pm

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A French policeman stands guard outside the headquarters of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris, September 19, 2012. (AP/Michel Euler)

PARIS — Three million copies of Wednesday’s first post-attack issue of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo will be made available on newsstands, distributors MLP said Monday.

The weekly’s lawyer said the issue would “naturally” contain cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

MLP had initially planned to print 1 million copies of an issue currently being put together by survivors of last week’s shooting at the magazine’s offices, but said demand from France and abroad has been huge.

The original paper printed at 60,000 copies a week, selling 30,000.

Twelve people, including the top editor and some of France’s most prominent cartoonists, were gunned down when two Islamist gunmen stormed Charlie Hebdo’s central Paris offices January 7.

The cover of Charlie Hebdo's Wednesday issue, depicting an ultra-Orthodox man pushing a wheelchair-bound Muslim — The cover of an issue of Charlie Hebdo depicting an ultra-Orthodox man pushing a wheelchair-bound Muslim (screen capture)

This week’s huge print run is an act of defiance for the long-established satirical weekly which repeatedly provoked Muslim ire by publishing cartoons that mocked the Prophet Mohammad, but has just as often ridiculed the Roman Catholic Church.

Lawyer Richard Malka said the magazine would print the Muhammad cartoons in the upcoming issue.

“We will not give in otherwise all this won’t have meant anything,” he told French radio Monday. “Humor without self-deprecation isn’t humor. We mock ourselves, politicians, religions, it’s a state of mind you need to have.”

“The Charlie state of mind is the right to blaspheme,” he went on.

With their headquarters still a crime scene, remaining staff are working out of the offices of daily newspaper Liberation with equipment loaned by the Le Monde daily and cash handed out by other French and even foreign media.

With the attacks the magazine has become a national symbol of free speech. Huge crowds, including 1.5 million in Paris in the biggest rally in French history, took to the streets Sunday, many carrying signs saying: “Je suis Charlie.”