Charlie Hebdo’s ’survivor’ edition to come out today, will have crying Prophet Muh

Mangalore Today News Network

Paris, Jan 14, 2015:  Fighting against odds, French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s first edition, after a terror attack on its Paris office, will hit the newsstands on Wednesday.

The new edition of the weekly has Prophet Muhammad’s cartoon on the cover holding a ’Je suis Charlie’ sign, which means ’I am Charlie’ sign under the title ’Tout est pardonné’ or ’all is forgiven’.

The sign ’Je suis Charlie’ has been widely used by people all over the world in solidarity with the weekly.

The Prophet also has a tear in his eyes.

It is being called the ’survivors’ edition.

The issue, which has been put together by surviving staff of the weekly, will have 15 pages of articles and drawings and illustrations and articles from the five cartoonists, two columnists and one sub-editor who was killed, as per media reports.

It will also have a centre spread of cartoons, the main one showing the Arc de Triomphe and scenes from the huge rally in Paris on Sunday.

An estimated 1.6 million people and many world leaders had gathered for the unity rally in the French capital.

As per an AFP report, the latest issue has an editorial in which the chief editor, Gerard Biard, says that he and the surviving employees "with all our heart thank those who, in their millions, are really by our side, who sincerely and deeply `are Charlie`".

On the other hand, surviving columnist Patrick Pelloux jokes around about the attack and his departed colleagues, then writes, “I don`t know why this is my first column written in tears. The sound of their voices is like silence.”

The final page is said to be of 13 cartoons, most of which lampoon the two ’terrorists’ who attacked the weekly office and killed 12 people including its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, also known as Charb on January 07.

Reports also said that an unprecedented three million copies of the latest edition was printed for today.

The weekly’s distributors had initially planned to print one million copies of the issue, but had said yesterday that demand from France and abroad had been huge, a news agency reported.

The special issue is being offered in 16 languages for readers around the world, one of its columnists, Patrick Pelloux, had said yesterday.

Earlier, the weekly used to print 60,000 copies and reportedly sold around 30,000 of them.

The surviving Charlie Hebdo staff have since Friday been working out of the offices of another French newspaper, Liberation, with equipment loaned by other media organisations.

Their own blood-soaked offices remain sealed by police, with the entrance covered with flowers, pencils and candles in tribute to the dead.

The gunmen, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, claimed to belong to the jihadist group al Qaeda in Yemen.

They were killed on Friday, as was an accomplice claiming affiliation to the rival Islamic State group, Amedy Coulibaly, in separate but coordinated French commando raids on sites in and near Paris where they had taken hostages.

In all 17 people and the three attackers were killed in three days of violence.

The incident shocked the world, with all round condemnation for the attackers.

There has been huge support for the weekly with tributes being paid to those who had died in the attack.

 

Courtesy: Zeenews