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The French paper targeted by killer terrorists Wednesday has a long history of mocking radical Islam and the Prophet Mohammed – and even tweeted a satirical cartoon wishing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a Happy New Year’s just minutes before the attack.
Another cartoon released in this week’s issue and titled “Still No Attacks in France” had a caricature of a jihadi fighter saying “Just wait — we have until the end of January to present our New Year’s wishes.”
The artist was Charlie Hebdo editor and cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier, known as “Charb” – who was among those killed.
Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly threatened by jihadis for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and its offices were firebombed in 2011 after an issue featured a caricature of the prophet on its cover.
Charbonnier said then that Islam was fair game for a free press.
“If we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism, that is annoying,” he said.
The newspaper once named Mohammed as its guest editor, published cartoons of the prophet naked, and renamed itself Sharia Hebdo with the cover slogan “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter,” the Daily Mail reported.
The controversy began in 2006 when the paper reprinted the infamous caricatures of Mohammed by Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, which had led to deadly riots across the Muslim world when they first appeared.
In 2012 they again printed cartoons of the Prophet while more violent protests were raging across the Middle East.
A year later, riot police had to protect the building after the paper printed a cartoon depicting the Prohpet as a naked baby and being pushed in a wheelchair.
In an interview in 2013, Charbonnier revealed he had been under police protection after one of the cartoon issues was published.
























