Charlie Hebdo to publish another cover featuring the Prophet Muhammad

The surviving members of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo will publish three million copies of their latest issue on Wednesday, a week after 12 people were killed in a deadly attack at their headquarters in Paris.

The cover features a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad with a tear streaming down his cheek and holding a sign that says in French “I am Charlie.” Above the cartoon is the phrase “All is forgiven.” The cartoon figure is being interpreted as the Prophet Muhammad forgiving the cartoonists for making fun of him.

Many Muslims consider it against the faith to depict images of the Prophet. And the magazine’s depictions of him have been criticized by Muslims as highly offensive and blasphemous.

Last Wednesday, colleagues of Charlie Hebdo, known for lampooning Islam and other religions, were killed by two armed Islamist militants angry over the weekly’s caricatures of the Prophet.

Normally about 60,000 issues of the weekly satirical magazine are printed. However, Charlie Hebdo plans to print three million copies with the help of the Liberation newspaper. Out of respect for the Muslim community, CityNews is not publishing the cover but you can view it here courtesy of France’s Liberation newspaper.

CityNews General Manager, Dave Budge, explained the decision. “We felt that we could cover the story and describe the depiction and the cartoon and do so in a way that doesn’t offend people and offend people’s faith,” he said.

“Every news organization has a different audience, a different approach to news content, a different history and the audience has different expectations of those news organizations. One of the best things about having a free press is we don’t all do the same thing and that every organization is independent and makes its own decisions.”

The special edition will come a week after two brothers entered the offices of the magazine and gunned down a dozen people and injuring others.

That led to a massive manhunt that ended when Cherif and Said Kouachi were killed two days later by police during a standoff at an industrial complex on the northern outskirts of Paris. A third gunman was killed the same day at a Jewish grocery market in a separate standoff with police in Paris after he killed four hostages.

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