Charlie Hebdo to republish controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed ahead of trial of 2015 massacre

French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015, said Tuesday it was republishing hugely controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to mark this week’s start of the trial of alleged accomplices to the attack, France 24 reports.

Twelve people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the paper’s offices in Paris.

The perpetrators were killed in the wake of the massacre but 14 alleged accomplices in the attacks, which also targeted a Jewish supermarket, will go on trial in Paris on Wednesday.

The latest Charlie Hebdo cover shows a dozen cartoons first published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005 — and then reprinted by the French weekly in 2006, unleashing a storm of anger across the Muslim world.

The editorial team wrote that now was the right time to republish the cartoons and “essential” as the trial opens.

“We have often been asked since January 2015 to print other caricatures of Mohammed,” it said.

“We have always refused to do so, not because it is prohibited — the law allows us to do so — but because there was a need for a good reason to do it, a reason which has meaning and which brings something to the debate.”

The paper’s willingness to cause offence over a range of controversial issues has made it a champion of free speech for many in France, while others argue it has crossed a line too often.

But the massacre united the country in grief, with the slogan #JeSuisCharlie (I Am Charlie) going viral.

“A thousand bravos,” Zineb El Rhazoui, a former journalist for the weekly, said on Twitter, calling the republication of the cartoons a victory “for the right to blasphemy”.

The former director of Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val, also hailed a “remarkable idea” for defending freedom of thought and expression in the face of “terror”.

In a nuanced response, the president of the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM), Mohammed Moussaoui, urged people to “ignore” the cartoons, while condemning violence.

France 24