Charlie Hebdo Editor Killed in Paris Attack Built Career on Defiance
Among the dozen deaths in Wednesday's terrorist attack on the Paris office of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was its editor and principal cartoonist, Stphane Charbonnier, who built his career on defiance and the right to insult religion. Police say gunmen killed 10 journalists and two police officers, including one who had been stationed outside, before fleeing and prompting a manhunt. Though authorities have not yet identified the assailants, who are suspected of being extremists, Charlie Hebdo had received numerous threats over the years for its satirization of Islam, particularly the Prophet Muhammad. While the attack has been widely condemned, it has also reignited a discussion about Charlie Hebdo's penchant for political incorrectness, especially under Charbonnier. The editor, known as Charb, was in charge in 2011 when the newspaper ran a caricature of the Prophet on a cover and, in jest, named him the "editor in chief" of its next issue. The newspaper's office was firebombed the next day. "We don't feel like causing further provocation. We simply feel like doing our job as usual," he told Agence France-Presse. "The only difference this week is that Muhammad is on the cover and it's pretty rare to put him on the cover.", He also told the BBC that he thought the act was perpetrated by "idiot extremists," not French Muslims. "If we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism," he said, "that is annoying.", , Listen to the most important stories of the day.