Firebomb attack on satirical French magazine

A molotov cocktail has partially gutted the offices of the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

This week’s edition, due out today, was expected to be dedicated to Sharia law in reference to recent announcements by Libya’s interim government and Tunisia’s majority Islamist party, Ennahda. The magazine had named the Prophet Mohammed as its ‘guest editor-in-chief’ for the edition, which was to be called ‘Charia Hebdo’. The front cover showed a cartoon of the Prophet saying “100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter.”

Charlie Hebdo’s website has also been attacked with a message denouncing its publication five years ago of a caricature of the prophet Mohammed. Islam prohibits depictions of the Prophet.

Similar cartoons printed in a Danish satirical magazine and then in other European countries, sparked a string of sometimes violent protests in a number of Muslim countries.

No-one was injured in the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, but the publication’s editor is reported as saying that most of the office equipment had been destroyed.

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