Paris (AFP) – One of Charlie Hebdo’s most outspoken journalists said on Friday she is quitting the French satirical magazine because it has gone soft on Islamist extremism.
Zineb El Rhazoui accused the weekly of bowing to Islamist extremists and no longer daring to draw the Prophet Mohammed.
Her parting shot comes on the eve of the second anniversary of the jihadist massacre that almost wiped out the controversial magazine’s staff.
“Charlie Hebdo died on January 7”, the day the gunmen attacked the magazine killing 12 people, El Rhazoui said in a damning interview with AFP.
She said she felt Charlie Hebdo now follows the editorial line the extremists had demanded “before the attack — that Mohammed is no longer depicted”.
El Rhazoui, 35, who is followed everywhere by police bodyguards and is known as the most protected woman in France, also questioned the magazine’s “capacity to carry the torch of irreverence and absolute liberty”. more