Charlie Hebdo

Hey guys, pk here,

Now I'm aware that this is a pretty serious topic that I'm gonna be discussing here, so I'd just like to warn you beforehand that there's gonna be some pretty graphic stuff from here on out.

Now if you've paid attention to the news at all you'll be aware of something along the lines of The Charlie Hebdo attack, and anything online you might have seen saying 'Je Suis Charlie' or 'Nous Sommes Charlie' relates to that. (Je Suis Charlie translates to I Am Charlie and Nous Sommes Charlie translates to We Are Charlie). This refers to the horrifying attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices located in Paris. Charlie Hebdo is a weekly French satirical newspaper; satirical meaning it makes fun and creates comedy about people, governments or on-going events in a non-offensive way for comedy. The attack took place at 11:30 CET (Central European Time), or 10:30 GMT (Greenwich Standard Time) or early morning for the United States (between 2-5 approximately). Two masked gunmen, later confirmed to be extremists under Al-Qaeda, named Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi (brothers) forced their way into the offices wielding assault rifles, shotguns and an RPG and attacked the offices, killing twelve and injuring 11. Of the ones who were killed was the editor, Stephane Charbonnier, cartoonists Jean Cabut, Phillippe Honore, Bernard Verlhac, Georges Wolinski amongst other employees.

There was a third, unnamed suspect involved in the attack, who gave himself into the French Police at a Charleville-Mezieres police station. According to unofficial reports the third suspect was an 18 year old French Muslim man of North-African decent; potentially Algerian; he was the getaway driver for the two brothers but is yet to be charged under lack of evidence. Promptly after the two brothers escaped a nationwide Manhunt began, and at 10:30 CET on January 8th the two suspects were found near Aisne, north-east of Paris, and throughout the day were supposedly spotted around Villers-Cotterets and Longpont, after they robbed a gas station near Villers-Cotterets, and a search operation was launched in Foret de Retz; one of the largest forestry regions in Northern France. They were finally found near the town of Crepy-en-Valois in the morning of January 9th, where they hijacked a Peugeot Car and were chased by police for approximately 27 kilometers (16.7 miles) until they abandoned the car and took place near Dammartin-en-Goele were gunfire was exchanged.

At around 9:30am the brothers fled into a printworks, named Creation Tendance Decouverte in an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goule. Inside the building were owner Michel Catalano and a male employee, 26-year-old graphics designer Lilian Lepère. Catalano sent Lepere to hide in the warehouse and remained in his office himself. Not long after, a salesman named Didier went to the printworks on business. Catalano came out with Chérif Kouachi who introduced himself as a police officer. They shook hands and Kouachi told Didier, "Leave. We don't kill civilians anyhow." This caused Didier to phone the police. The Kouachi brothers remained inside and a lengthy stand-off began. Michel Catalano re-entered the building and closed the door after Didier had left. The brothers were not aggressive towards Catalano, who stated, "I didn't get the impression they were going to harm me." He made coffee for them and helped bandage the neck wound that Said Kouachi had sustained during the earlier gunfire. Catalano was freed after an hour of being held hostage. He swore three times to the terrorists that he was alone and did not reveal Lepere's presence. The Kouachi brothers were never aware of him being there. Lepere hid inside a cardboard box and sent the police text messages for around 3 hours during the siege, providing them with useful information such as location inside the premises"

Upon failure to contact the suspects, the French authorities launched a siege upon the printworks, which lasted for about 8-9 hours. At around 4:30 pm there were three unexplained explosions near the building and at around 5:00 pm a police team landed on the roof of the printworks. Before the police could make a move however, the two brothers ran out of the building and fired at the police, previously stating a desire to die as martyrs, and the Kouachi brothers were gunned down immediately, bringing the siege on Dammartin-en-Goule to a halt. Lepere escaped unharmed.

As if this wasn't bad enough, there were two more related incidents that occurred between January 8th and 9th. Firstly, the Montrouge shooting where Amedy Coulibaly, an assailant of the Kouachi brothers shot and killed a municipal police officer, Claissa Jean-Phillippe in Montrouge, a southern suburb of Paris, and a street sweeper was also severely injured. In addition to this, Coulibaly, armed with two assault rifles entered and attack a kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, killing 4 and taking 15 hostages. Police stormed the grocery and killed Coulibaly, along with who was speculated to be his wife and accomplice, Hayat Boumeddiene, with all hostages rescued.

It goes without saying that this is a horrifying incident, and arguably the worst possible way to start off 2015, and it shouldn't be something that goes under the radar on a wider scale, such as the Ferguson protests, or the Hong Kong riots, both of which are still very real and very serious incidents that the media has thrown under the radar, and abandoned. I do realize however that Ferguson is still quite prominent in various parts of the United States, but from what I've seen here in the UK, and from what I've been told from friends from all over the world, Ferguson has just been ignored.

Let me know what you think of this whole thing, I'm curious as to how the J&H community have taken this, as I haven't seen too much on it.

Je suis Charlie. Tu es Charlie. Nous sommes Charlie.

-Elliot (pk)

Update: Here are some scenes of protest in France as of January 11th

 

Wow this is so sad. Now I cry. I hate seeing people die.

 

The ferguson riots were not really thrown under the radar. and they weren't really riots they were protests. There's a difference. I made a thread about Ferguson if u want to look at it.

One topic that was thrown under the radar was Leelah Alcorn. If you want to know about it I can send u some info but I don't really feel like going into the topic on this thread b/c some people's beliefs would probably be uh bashed.

anyway
Yes this is a tragedy and it is sad
It's an awful thing but this is the world we live in :l
Rest in peace Charlie workers I guess.

 

This thread actually helped me understand the situation much better....all the websites I read supplied me with little to no knowledge about the subject so it's good to see someone taking time out of their day to write this for us. SO, thank you for that pk.
I feel really bad for this incident, and I do agree that it shouldn't go unnoticed. The only point I don't agree with is how the Ferguson riots were ignored, as I live in Manhattan, where numerous protestors walk past my school/apartment building every so often. It's actually quite a big deal here, but I don't know elsewhere, which might've been why you stated that. :P
But, yeah, my condolences to all of the tragic deaths that occurred in France. It's quite unfortunate to have all of these major tragedies happen and start us off on the wrong foot for 2015. >.<

 

Apologies if I got some of the smaller details wrong, and I'll fix them in the thread. I also do know about the Leelah Alcorn scenario as well, which was a horrible incident which really shows how badly treated different sexualities and genders are treated in todays society. The reason why I said Ferguson was thrown under the radar is because it isn't really shown in the news as frequently as it should. It has been completely abandoned by the British news as well.

@Gooby has said the same thing in regards to Ferguson; I've edited it in the original post now. I'm glad I could clear up the situation for you :)

 

Tragic, really, but Charlie Hebdo should've foreseen that. Islam is a peaceful religion, very similar to Christianity. There are fundamentalist Christians, so there should be radical Muslims, too. Charlie Hebdo should've known that, and by publishing that satire was skating on thin ice.

I know it's satire. I'm a Polandball Geopolitical Satire fan. But I've seen the picture, it's a controversial picture of Islam's prophet Muhammad. Of course radical Muslims would consider that a direct attack against Islam. It's all the same, really. Someone says they actually believe in some Nazi ideology, he immediately gets declared as antisemitic. I say that I don't support homosexuality, I instantly get labeled as homophobic. Someone draws a Polandball comic about the Schutzstaffel, he's automatically an antichrist. See my point? It happens everywhere around us. I agree that these extremists have a hair trigger.

About Ferguson, since you mentioned it, I strive to be neutral because I don't know what's really going on. It was only mentioned once or twice in Philippine news.

Back on topic. The collective "MON DIEU" reactions are justified because this is a real tragedy for France. What's sadder is that lives wouldn't have to be lost for entertainment. Condolences to the families of the ones killed, etc., the usual stuff.

 

I have to agree with you there, on how they were skating on very thin ice by frequently publishing satirical comics, but the only way I could see why they wouldn't have had foresight on the attack is because of all of the satirical TV Shows, Newspapers, Magazines etc. in Paris, in France, in Europe, hell maybe all over the world. There was always gonna be an attack though; France has never had a healthy relationship with its surrounding countries, especially places like Algeria or Morocco.

I won't go into detail about Ferguson, but effectively Ferguson is a town located in Michigan, up in the north of the United States, and has a growing number of black people in the population. However over the stretch of 2014, numerous black teenagers and one black child, aged only 12 (or around about) were shot with no apparent motive, eventually being pinned down to police brutality and police racism. However because of how the US Government works in scenarios like these, all of the police officers who were convicted of effectively murder, or homicide were let go without being charged. Google more into it if you're interested, and @Gooby has a thread about it here.

 

Ferguson is in Missouri ;)
Not Michigan.
There may be a Ferguson, Michigan
but the "infamous" one is located
in Missouri.