The editor of the French satirical magazine Stephane Charbonnier, who went by Charb, fought for the freedom of speech despite receiving death threats over the controversial cartoons he published.
Charb, who was killed in the attack on the magazine’s headquarters on Wednesday, told French paper Le Monde in 2012 that he would rather “die standing than live on my knees,” according to the New York Times.
He was under police protection due to the threats he received, largely related to the controversial cartoons about Islam the magazine run.
The magazine’s headquarters were bombed in 2011 after the publication ran a cover featuring a cartoon with the Prophet Muhammad, but Charb said that such attacks would not deter him from printing the magazine.
“I don’t feel as though I’m killing someone with a pen,” he told Le Monde. “I’m not putting lives at risk. When activists need a pretext to justify their violence, they always find it.”
