Charlie Hebdo to Publish Another Prophet Muhammad Cartoon on New Cover: Paris Magazine Will Make Millions More Copies Than Normal
Just a week after an attack on its headquarters, Charlie Hebdo will print three million copies of a special satirical magazine depicting the Prophet Muhammad on its cover.
Publishers of the weekly magazine will put the copies on newsstands worldwide in 16 different languages on Jan. 14, Bloomberg reported. The new edition set to print three million copies will be created only by people from Charlie Hebdo. Normally, only 60,000 copies of the magazine are printed each week.
Millions of people around the world and in France protested against the attack to the Charlie Hebdo headquarters which left a third of its journalists dead.
"I am sorry we've drawn him again, but the Muhammad we've drawn is first of all a man who's crying," Renald Luzier, the cartoonist who drew the special issue cover and who goes by the name of Luz, said in a press conference in Paris Tuesday. "We've been called dangerous, irresponsible troublemakers. But we're above all cartoonists, just like kids who like to draw."
The special edition of the magazine covers shows Prophet Muhammad holding a sign that says, "I am Charlie...all is forgiven."
BBC reports that Richard Malka, the magazine's lawyer, said that it is important to show that staff would "cede nothing" to extremists.
"We will not give in. The spirit of 'I am Charlie' means the right to blaspheme," he said.
The magazine was firebombed back in 2011 after publishing Muhammad cartoons. Last week, a total of 17 people, including five of Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists, were killed in three days of terror attacks in Paris. The recent killings by jihadists mark the deadliest attacks in France in over 50 years. Since the first attack, the nation has been on the highest terrorist alert.
After the attack, the gunmen were heard saying that they had "avenged the Prophet Muhammad."
Survivors have been working on the magazine from another office.
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