French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo will republish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, which prompted two jihadist brothers to invade the editorial staff of the magazine in Paris and kill twelve people.
The trial of the suspected helpers in the attack and those in its wake will begin on Wednesday. A total of seventeen people died in the attacks, and the three perpetrators were also shot.
"We have often been asked to publish new Mohammed cartoons, but we have always refused. Not because it is forbidden, but because we needed a good reason, a reason that adds something to the debate,” the editors wrote in the latest issue. "The start of the trial, therefore, seems to us to be a good reason.”
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"We will never sleep, we will never give up,” said Laurent Sourisseau, the magazine's director also known as Riss.
The magazine will be available at newspaper stands from Wednesday but can already be viewed online today.
In 2006 the magazine was one of the magazines in Europe that republished the Mohammed cartoons of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Five years later, Charlie Hebdo published a 'Charia Hebdo' edition, referring to the Sharia, supposedly with the prophet Mohammed as guest editor. A Molotov cocktail was thrown against the façade of their building on that occasion.
The Brussels Times
