“We can’t live in a country without freedom of speech,” Stephane Charbonnier, the editor of French satirical news-magazine Charlie Hebdo told ABC in 2012. “I prefer to die than live like a rat.”
Charbonnier was one of the people killed today when Islamic terrorists shot 12 people in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. “We have avenged the prophet,” reports say the shooters shouted today.
The killings are believed to be in retaliation for cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed that the magazine published in 2011. The office was firebombed after it published the cartoons, and Charbonnier was forced to take two bodyguards with him everywhere he went.
Undeterred and defiant, Charbonnier vowed to continue publishing.
"Our job is not to defend freedom of speech, but without it we're dead,” he said in the 2012 interview.
Charlie Hebdo is an irreverent publication that takes a no-holds barred approach to subjects, frequently satirizing religions, as well as figures in politics, government, and pop culture.
The main photo for their Twitter account is this:
It was first tweeted on December 19th along with this (translated) tweet: "A child. A dad, a mom. Only when it suits them, in fact."
No reports of bombings or threats caused by the magazine's frequent mockery of Christianity, however.
Here’s the last tweet from the Charlie Hebdo account, mocking ISIS’ terrorist leader al-Baghdadi:
“Greetings from al-Baghdadi as well,” the caption reads and al-Baghdadi adds, “and especially health.” The tweet reads: “Best wishes, by the way.”