“You’re going to die!” read one of the message on the publication’s Facebook page.
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has received a slew of threats and insults after publishing yet another controversial cover, this time featuring a caricature of naked Muslims running on a beach with the heading “Muslims LOOSEN UP!”
The issue, published last week, depicts a scantily clad Muslim man, his penis poking through his beard, and a woman entirely naked except for a veil covering her head and shoulders. The full caption reads: “Reform of Islam: Muslims LOOSEN UP!”
MUSULMANS DÉ-COIN-CE-VOUS! *
Par RISS pour @Charlie_Hebdo_*C'est également valable pour les autres. pic.twitter.com/A0YRrYfOTD
— Soeur Marijuana 2017 (@Soeur_Marijuana) August 11, 2016
[MUSLIMS LOOSEN UP. By RISS for @Charlie_Hebdo. This also applies to everyone else]
The cover is a reference to a recent decision by a mayor in southern France to ban “burkinis” — full-body swimsuits that also cover the head and are favored by Muslim bathers.
Burqas are banned in France because they conceal the face, which compromises identification. Because they don’t cover the face, burkinis are technically different. But the mayor banned them because he saw them, too, as a security threat, claiming that swimwear manifesting religious affiliation could “create risk of trouble to public order.”
The cover immediately drew the ire of social media, with the staff at the magazine saying they’d received multiple threats. Eric Portheau, a co-owner of the publication, says he filed a formal complaint with the police. “It does not stop,” he told the French paper Le Parisien. He said the threats have been pouring in all summer.
The magazine was criticized during last months’ Euro 2016 football tournament after publishing a picture of French player Antoine Griezmann in the shape of a sex toy. Over the past month, the magazine has received over 60 “chilling messages,” insults and anti-semitic remarks on its public Facebook page, including one suggesting a physical attack on several members of the editorial staff, according to the Local, an English-language online publication.
Last week, Cannes mayor David Lisnard issued an ordinance forbidding beachwear that desecrated “good morals and secularism,” adding that burkinis “signified religious affiliation in an ostentatious way,” which might spark unrest as France continues to be the target of Islamist terrorist attacks.
France was the first European country to outlaw the full-face covering Islamic veil (burqa) in public spaces in 2010. But the question of Islamic clothing remains a highly contentious one the country, which has the largest number of Muslims in western Europe.
The threats against Charlie Hebdo come a year and a half after Islamic terrorists attacked the satirical magazine, gunning down 12 people, as revenge for publishing ribald drawings of the Prophet Mohammed, which is forbidden under Islamic law.
The magazine’s staff has been working under enhanced protection since the attack at the magazine’s headquarters last January. Charlie Hebdo moved its offices to a higher-security venue in September.
