At least two masked gunmen burst into an editorial meeting of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this morning and killed 12 people including the cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous, and Philippe Honoré. The attackers have not yet been apprehended and details regarding their motive are incomplete, but the magazine and individual cartoonists had been threatened in the past for printing cartoons depicting Mohamed, including the infamous panels that originally ran in a Dutch paper in 2005.
Charb was also the magazine’s editor and publisher, and had been under police protection since the building was firebombed in 2011. His bodyguard and one other police officer were also among the dead, according to Le Monde. Witnesses told police one of the gunmen said during the attack that they had “avenged the prophet.” In addition to the 12 dead, at least seven more individuals were wounded and four of them are in critical condition.
We will certainly have much more on this story as it develops, but for now CBLDF stands with the international cartooning community in expressing its grief and shock at this attack. Our thoughts are with the victims as well as their families and colleagues today.