PARIS -- A fire early Wednesday caused serious damages at the headquarters of a satiric French newspaper that "invited" the Prophet Muhammad as a guest editor this week. A police official said the fire broke out about 1 a.m. at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, and the cause remains unclear. No injuries were reported. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because an investigation into the fire is underway. Police cited a witness saying that someone was seen throwing two firebombs at the building. He claimed on France-Info radio that someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the building, in a working-class district of eastern Paris, and now "we don't have a paper." He said, however, that Charlie Hebdo would not stop publishing. The fire was quickly contained, but many new offices on two levels were heavily damaged and equipment used by journalists to produce the paper was inoperable, a police official said. Police technicians began their investigation hours after the fire, taking fingerprints and various samples from the site of the paper. Newspaper employees said they had received numerous threats as a result of the issue, subtitled "Sharia Hebdo," in reference to Islamic law. The front-page of the weekly showed a cartoon-like man with a turban, white robe and beard smiling broadly and saying, in an accompanying bubble, "100 lashes if you don't die laughing." Page 2, called "Sharia Madame," is made up of a series of cartoons featuring women in burqas, the face-covering robes. And the paper's tongue-in-cheek editorial, signed "Muhammad," follows on page 3, centered on the victory of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party in the nation's first free election recently, and saying that the party's real intention was to impose Islam, not democracy. Each page contains "a word from Muhammad" in the corner and spoofs the news by twisting it into the weekly's current theme. Leading French politicians, citing the right to freedom of expression, condemned the attack on the paper. Newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in 2005 by a Danish newspaper triggered protests in Muslim countries. Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear this could lead to idolatry.
The director of the newspaper, who uses the name Charb, said on BFM television that "the material damages are large" and that many computer files were destroyed. He stood in front of piles of scorched papers and equipment.
French newspaper's Muhammad issue sparks ire and fire
Newspaper, called Charlie Hebdo, "invited" the Prophet Muhammad as a guest editor this week • Witness says someone threw two firebombs at the building • Newspaper employees said they had received numerous threats as a result of the issue.
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