A French regional newspaper has filed a complaint over threats received on social media after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed on its front page during coverage of the beheading of a teacher in a suburban town near Paris, reports Radio France International.
The complaint was filed due to comments on a Facebook account of regional newspaper La Nouvelle République, after it republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Sunday.
Two days earlier, teacher Samuel Paty was attacked and beheaded in apparent retaliation to a lesson in early October, in which Paty showed the cartoons to 13-year-olds as part of a class on moral and civic education in Conflans-Saint-Honorine, north-west of Paris.
“It was not meant as a provocation, but as our way of saying no more barbarism and of recalling our values,” Christophe Hérigault, editorial director of the Tours-based daily, told AFP.
“After the publication, 99.99 percent of the reactions expressed support or satisfaction, but there were also six threatening posts on social networks,” Hérigault explained. “We decided to press charges as a matter of principle.
“We hold republican and humanistic values and believe in freedom of expression. Our newspaper has always been respectful of the beliefs and spirituality of others.”