(Image Source: euronews)

BY ADAM FALK

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY


A French magazine headquarters -- firebombed. Charlie Hebdo is supposed to be a satirical magazine. What happened to its offices was no joke. Euronews has more.

“The Paris-based publication was firebombed late last night, and it’s office partially gutted. A special edition due out today is dedicated to Sharia law, in reference to recent announcements made Libya’s interim government and Tunisia’s new majority Islamist party.”

Reports say the magazine was targeted because of its issue due out Wednesday.
It features a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed and was titled “Charia Hebdo,” a play on Sharia Law. France 24 reports the magazine’s editor...

“...was told by the police that two individuals came and threw a cocktail - a molotov cocktail - into one of the windows on the ground floor of the building. There is a lot of damage. You can see the debris behind me.”

CNN notes, this latest incident is part of an ongoing and heightened sense of Islamic tension in France.

“France has been wracked by tensions over its rapidly growing Muslim minority. The country banned the wearing of Islamic veils and other face coverings earlier this year, claiming they were both degrading and a security risk.”

The New York Times quotes the Prime Minister, who said in a statement...

“Freedom of expression is an inalienable right in our democracy and all attacks on the freedom of the press must be condemned with the greatest firmness … No cause can justify such an act of violence.”

Fox News notes, this is not the first time Charlie Hebdo has gotten crossways with some members of the Muslim faith.  In 2007, a Paris court threw out a suit brought by two Muslim organizations against Charlie Hebdo for reprinting cartoons of prophet Muhammad, which had first appeared in a Danish newspaper, sparking angry protests by Muslims worldwide.