Eight years after the attack suffered by Charlie Hebdothe satirical newspaper publishes cartoons about the Iranian regime in the midst of a crackdown on protests in the country.
It is certainly no coincidence that this Iranian regime, hated by a large part of its youth, finds in Charlie Hebdo a useful device to gain the support of his conservative base. Because for a large part of the Muslim world, the satirical weekly is not a martyr of freedom of expression. It is first and foremost a media synonymous with offense to Islam and which symbolizes by its caricatures all that the West can do worse. Except that in this case, even in the eyes of its detractors, Charlie Hebdo is not the newspaper that attacked the figure of the prophet, as it had been reproached by the Islamists in 2006, during the publication of the twelve cartoons of Muhammad taken from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
No, in 2023, almost 17 years after the first drawings, 12 years after the publication of an issue Sharia Weekly and eight years to the day after the killing of the Kouachi brothers, it is the newspaper which has just published a dozen caricatures having mocked a character whose sanctity remains to be demonstrated – dare we say – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So, unless we consider that the supreme guide of the Islamic Republic is equivalent, in rank and power, to the prophet himself, there can be no question of blasphemy here.
Freedom to create, caricature and think
By reacting to these caricatures with the arbitrary closure of the French Research Institute in Iran, Tehran nevertheless seeks to rekindle the flame of jihad against the unbelieving and blasphemous West. In doing so, he misses his target. First of all, because it is very bad knowledge of the satirical press to believe that this place of research which depends on the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has any link with an independent newspaper and willingly mocking its government. Then and again, because it is not a question of blasphemy here, but only of the freedom to create, to caricature, to think. 300 drawings were sent to propose the caricature “ Ali Khamenei’s funniest and nastiest », as requested by Charlie, and among them, quite a few works by exiled Iranians.
Basically, the circle is complete, for those who still wondered what a theocracy was, the answer is there: it is not only the regime of a representative of God, it is also the government of men. clerics who seek to protect themselves from criticism through censorship.
For this, all means are good: prison or execution for opponents and intimidation for the foreign press, such as Charlie Hebdo who was able to measure it again this week by noting that his site had been hacked.
► To read also: France: “Charlie Hebdo” devotes a special issue to the regime of the mullahs in Iran