PARIS/ISLAMABAD: French police are studying a video in which the man suspected of attacking people with a meat cleaver on Friday says he will commit an act of “resistance” after the republication of cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad in a satirical magazine.
The suspect, who is from Pakistan, was arrested soon after two people were wounded in front of the old offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Officials said his clothes were spattered in blood.
The video was found on the suspect’s mobile phone, French media reported. Reuters could not independently authenticate the video recording. A police source confirmed a video was being examined.
In the video, the suspect identifies himself as Zeheer Hassan Mehmood and says he came from Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab province. Starting to sob, he then recites poetry praising the Prophet Muhammad.
“If I’m sounding emotional, let me explain: here, in France, the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were made,” he says in Urdu. “I am going to do (an act of) resistance today, Sept. 25.”
Mehmood’s father praised his son.
“My heart is filled with happiness,” Arshad Mehmood told the online news site Naya Pakistan from the family home. “I can sacrifice all my five sons to protect the Prophet’s honor.”
“He called us ... and said that the God’s Prophet had chosen him, and assigned him to kill the blasphemers.”
The cartoons were first published by Charlie Hebdo in 2006 and spurred militants to target the magazine’s office in 2015 in an attack that left 12 people dead and was claimed by Al-Qaeda.
The weekly, which moved to a secret location after the attack, republished the cartoons earlier this month to mark the beginning of the trial of 14 people with alleged links to the Charlie Hebdo killers.
For Muslims, any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous.
Wearing a long tunic, the suspect said he was spiritually guided by Ilyas Qadri. Qadri is a Sunni cleric and the founder of Dawat-e-Islami, a non-violent organization spread across the globe.
Qadri says a person who commits blasphemy should be handed in to police, but if another individual were driven by their emotions to kill the blasphemer, the law should not apply.
Dawat-e-Islami did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Paris knife attack suspect wanted to avenge Prophet cartoons
https://arab.news/9ym5g
Paris knife attack suspect wanted to avenge Prophet cartoons
- The suspect, who is from Pakistan, was arrested soon after two people were wounded in front of the old offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine
Tanzania opposition says 2,000 killed in election violence
- Opposition party Chadema’s deputy chairperson John Heche said Tanzania witnessed “mass killings of more than 2,000 people and over 5,000 injured in the space of just one week“
- The violence was carried out “with direct involvement of the state“
DAR ES SALAM: Tanzania’s main opposition party on Thursday said more than 2,000 people were killed in a week of election violence, calling for sanctions against officials it accused of crimes against humanity.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner of October 29 polls with 98 percent of the vote, but her government was accused of rigging the polls and overseeing a campaign of murders and abductions of her critics that sparked nationwide protests and riots.
Opposition party Chadema’s deputy chairperson John Heche told reporters that Tanzania witnessed “mass killings of more than 2,000 people and over 5,000 injured in the space of just one week.”
He said the violence was carried out “with direct involvement of the state” and that it amounted to “crimes against humanity.”
Previous opposition counts had put the deaths at more than 1,000. The government has not given a death toll.
Heche urged the international community to “impose sanctions on all individuals involved in planning and executing these acts of criminality and crimes against humanity.”
In a live online broadcast, he said those responsible should be subjected to travel bans, including restrictions on their families.
Heche also said the unrest triggered a surge of people fleeing the country, alongside “the abduction and enforced disappearance of hundreds of civilians.”
Chadema further accused security units of carrying out rapes, torture and “gruesome killings,” and of engaging in widespread looting and arbitrary arrests.
The party urged authorities to return the bodies of those killed so families could bury them.
Authorities have continued to stifle dissent, with planned protests earlier this week seeing empty streets and a significant security presence.
Hassan last week justified the killings, saying it was necessary to prevent the overthrow of the government.
“The force that was used corresponds to the situation at hand,” she said in a speech.
Hassan has formed an inquiry commission into the violence, which the opposition says includes only government loyalists, instead calling for an independent investigation.
