Days after the barbaric beheading of teacher Samuel Paty on the streets of Paris by a terrorist for showing the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad to his students, support continues to pour in for the deceased teacher.
The people of France, defying threats to their life, on Wednesday assembled near a government building in Montpellier to condemn the killing of Samuel Paty. Amidst heavy security, the locals projected huge images of Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the images of Samuel Paty on a local government building as a symbolic tribute to the deceased teacher.
Charlie Hebdo cartoons, including one of Mohammed, projected onto Montpellier government building. pic.twitter.com/pnhU0EXTsc
— Chris Tomlinson (@TomlinsonCJ) October 21, 2020
Reportedly, the images were projected onto two town halls in the Occitanie region — Montpellier and Toulouse for over four hours on Wednesday evening. Carole Delga, the mayor said that the decision to project the image was to state “there must be no weakness in the face of the enemies of democracy, facing those who transform religion into a weapon of war… those who intend to destroy the Republic.”
Paty, a history teacher in the greater Paris area, was murdered by a Muslim immigrant terrorist on Friday after he had shown his students cartoons of the Prophet of Islam from Charlie Hebdo during a class debate on freedom of expression. A Muslim youth had stabbed a 47-year-old teacher in his throat while shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
French President pays his tribute
Earlier on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron too paid his respects to the deceased teacher who was beheaded near Paris last week.
At the memorial service at The Sorbonne, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that France ‘will not give up cartoons’. He also added that Paty was killed by ‘cowards’ for representing the secular, democratic values of the French Republic.
Taking to Twitter, Macron also shared an image of Paty to express his solidarity with the terror-victim.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 21, 2020
The cartoons of Prophet Mohammed have been used by Islamic terrorists as a justification to carry out several attacks especially in Europe. In 2015, Islamic terrorist had attacked offices of Charlie Hebdo after the satirical newspaper had published cartoons that depicted Muhammad, which is strictly prohibited in Islam.
Offended by Charlie Hebdo’s actions, two Islamic terrorists had attacked the office of Hebdo in 2015 and had killed 12 people. The terrorists had stated that the attack was an act of revenge for depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The attack on Paty was the latest attack over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, who was beheaded for showing those cartoons to his students.
The Friday’s terror attack on Paris has now prompted a strong response from the French government, including banning of radical Islamic organisations that expressed support to the terrorist. The French government has taken steps to dissolve radical Islamist organisations in the country.
