On Friday, a French court found six teenagers guilty in connection with the ‘blasphemy’ killing of teacher Samuel Paty in 2020, a gruesome murder that sent shockwaves throughout the nation and the globe and prompted a reckoning of the looming threat of creeping Islamic extremism.
The educator had presented caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad to his students during a lesson on freedom of expression, sparking discontent among certain Muslim parents. The discontent translated into online backlash, with the teacher targeted by Islamic fundamentalists who issued threats against him for what they considered an ‘unpardonable sin’ against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad as many Muslims refrain from portraying prophets, viewing such depictions as blasphemous.
One of the convicts was a teenage girl who the court found had cooked up a story that led to her teacher being decapitated by a teenage Jihadi terrorist. Five others were convicted for identifying Mr Paty to the attacker, who went on to stab the French teacher in the name of ‘blasphemy’.
Like many school truants, the 13-year-old girl was determined not to let her father know that she had been suspended from school for missing classes. As a result, she weaved a story featuring her teacher Samuel Paty. The girl told her father that Mr Paty had asked Muslim students to leave the classroom while he showed the cartoons from the satirical newspaper Charlier Hebdo during a lesson on free speech and blasphemy.
Soon after the girl narrated the fictitious tale, her father took to social media to launch a campaign, identifying Mr Paty and the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. He also called Mr Paty a “thug” and demanded he be sacked. The claims made by the girl’s father triggered global outrage and led to death threats against Mr Paty. 10 days later, the teacher was dead—decapitated by an Islamist terrorist.
It was later reported that the girl’s father was in touch with Paty’s killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov. The prosecutor even claimed that there was a “direct causal link” between the online campaign and Mr Paty’s brutal murder. The murderer had reportedly also a sent text message to the girl’s father before he beheaded Mr Paty with a kitchen knife.
The other five defendants were guilty of staking out Mr Paty and identifying him to the killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov, though the court said they were not aware of his intentions to kill Mr Paty.
All sentences from 14 months to two years have been suspended or commuted.
Samuel Paty beheading and the menace of ‘blasphemy’ killings
Samuel Paty was beheaded in October 2020 by an Islamic terrorist in the French capital Paris for allegedly showing caricatures of the Prophet of Islam to his students. A Muslim youth stabbed a 47-year-old teacher in his throat while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The attacks occurred in the suburb of Conflans-Saint-Honorine, northwest of Paris on Friday. Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Muslim youth, was a native of Chechnya, Russia. Shockingly, the attacker had also taken to social media to post images of the victim’s severed head, which was later removed by the authorities.
Friday’s attack comes amidst the ongoing trial against the terrorists responsible for the January 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo. In January 2015, Islamist terrorists had gunned down 12 people in and around the Charlie Hebdo offices for publishing caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.
Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, had published cartoons that depicted Muhammad, which is strictly prohibited in Islam. Offended by Charlie Hebdo’s actions, two Islamic terrorists attacked the office of Hebdo in 2015 and killed 12 people. The terrorists had stated that the attack was an act of revenge for depicting the Prophet Muhammad.