One of the writers for satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the target of a deadly attack in January, said that the magazine’s cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad are different from the contest to draw Muhammed in Texas over the weekend.
Jean-Baptiste Thoret, a Charlie Hebdo film critic, told PBS’ Charle Rose that there’s “absolutely no comparison possible” between the Charlie Hebdo attack and the shooting outside of the Muhammed cartoon contest held near Dallas by anti-Islam group American Freedom Defense Initiative.
“To be honest, I can’t imagine the kind of comparison you can make between the Charlie Hebdo attack January 7 and this event,” Thoret told Rose when asked for his reaction to the Texas attack.
Thoret said the contest in Texas was part of a “very harsh movement against Islamization of the U.S.”
He said that at Charlie Hebdo, the writers and cartoonists were “criticizing” religion, “not Muslim people in particular.”
Watch the clip below via PBS:
H/t Mediaite
Charlie Hebdo, as much as they are reviled by quite a number of people, are ultimately a news outlet that goes after a number of different people and figures who they feel ought to be knocked down a peg. This event was focused on one thing: pissing off Muslims and desperately trying to spark a reaction of some kind, which they [unfortunately] got.
No, they are definitely NOT the same thing.
AND…frankly I believe Geller hoped to see violence to prove her point, which means that she intentionally put attendees and hired security and police in harms way. The staff at Charlie Hebdo know that they take stands that could put themselves in danger.
"Thoret said the contest in Texas was part of a ‘very harsh movement against Islamization of the U.S.’ He said that at Charlie Hebdo, the writers and cartoonists were ‘criticizing’ religion, ‘not Muslim people in particular.’ "
That’s all well and good, but your calculus glaringly overestimates the capacity of bigots and extremists alike for nuance.
Uh-oh. Time for the loons to start hating France again.
I wouldn’t call them a news outlet as they don’t do any reporting of stories. Rather I would call them political/religious commentary. The huge difference between them and Geller’s hate group is that they (Charlie Hebdo) are “equal opportunity offenders” in that they’re pointing out the ridiculousness/hypocrisy of people; they’re not targeting one specific group of people for denigration.