In Solidarity with Charlie Hebdo

Published by IranFocus on Jan 9, 2015

This was bound to happen and no one was surprised by it. . The savage religious war being waged in Iraq and Syria now affects the entire world, and nobody’s freedom of speech and right to life is owed any respect by Islamist extremists. Masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing 12 people, including the paper’s editor and a cartoonist, before escaping in a getaway car.

Al-Qaeda-type groups have spread at an alarming rate, with multiple suicide bombing recently before the attack on Charlie Hebdo. In the Yemeni capital, Sanaa on Wednesday, a suicide bomber driving a minibus packed with explosives killed 33 police cadets Tuesday, another suicide bomber killed 23 Iraqi soldiers and pro-government Sunni tribesmen in a town in Anbar province north-west of Baghdad. There has been one suicide blast at the Saudi border in Iraq and another outside the Libyan government building in Tobruk. This was bound to spread to Europe.

The extremist movements have been able to commit highly public atrocities both as a method of intimidation and as a demonstration of the religious commitment of those carrying them out. The Independent called it a feature of 9/11, suicide bombings in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and the ritualised murder of journalists and aid workers on camera. When a government reacts this only serves to spur them on. In Pakistan 140 School children were massacred by the Taliban.

 when the government and army stepped up counter-terrorism operation, the Taliban vocally promised worse attacks and the death of more children.

All Arab countries have condemned the attack but it was praised by jihadi sympathisers who hailed it as “revenge” against those who had “insulted” the prophet Muhammad. Not only Rouhani did not condemn the heinous attack on French magazine, Its state run news agency, Tasnim has actually put the blame on France and demandad that France must review its policy towards the Middle East and the Muslim world.

everal newspapers in Iran also linked the attack to France's support for Syria's armed opposition and its participation in the international coalition waging air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extremist group. France “is tasting the bitter medicine of its support for terrorism,” said the conservative daily Resalat, which criticised the “neglect” of French security forces who "remained indifferent to the growing activities" of extremist groups.

These sentiments, that Charlie Hebdo was “asking for it”, need to change in the Muslim world. Terrorism should be condemned unequivocally, and apologist explanations for the violence of ISIS and the Taliban must be stopped. The leader of the Iranian opposition, Maryam Rajavi emphasized however that the Iranian people and their Resistance stood with the people of France and the aggrieved families of the victims of this heinous crime.

In a conference held in Paris last November, she stated that “Neither ISIS and the rule of caliphate in Iraq and Syria nor is the velayat-e faqih in Iran, the beheadings by ISIS, the crucifying of Sunnis by elements of the Iranian regime in Iraq, or the splashing of acid on women’s faces in Iran have anything to do with Islam. The ‘caliphate’ that announced its existence in Iraq and Syria in the past few months has been ruling in Iran for over 30 years.”

Pointing to the need of the international community for a “united front of democratic Muslims that are against fundamentalism and extremism”, Rajavi stipulated that in this united front, the shared view is to “reject extremism under the emblem of Islam and its main political and ideological epicentre, which is the religious dictatorship ruling Iran”. Moreover “supporting the alternative to this regime, meaning a cultural solution and an alternative founded on the democratic Islam” is essential.