The French satirical magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ will publish this Wednesday an issue featuring new caricatures of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as criticism of the repression and violence that the country is experiencing as a result of the protests.
«What do the mullahs understand about desire and passion? They don’t understand much. They are obsessive and their only pleasure is to control others, so they have to scare, contain and repress. They cannot help their fellow human beings to prosper, because they are not themselves,» reads an editorial published Tuesday in Farsi by its editor, known as Riss.
The new cover, previewed on the satirical magazine’s Twitter account, expresses, «Mullahs definitely can’t make women laugh,» accompanied by a drawing of a naked woman from whose anus four miniature figures of Khamenei emerge. A similar cover was published on January 7, coinciding with the anniversary of the attack on the magazine’s headquarters.
Charlie Hebdo’ announced on December 9 an «international competition to produce caricatures of the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran», whom it described as «a symbol of retrograde thinking, narrow-mindedness and intolerance of religious power».
These actions on the part of the French satirical magazine did not please Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amirabdolahian called the decision «insulting» and «indecent». The magazine suffered cyber attacks last week over the publication of the cartoons.
The magazine shot into the international spotlight following the publication in 2006 of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which had originally appeared in the Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands-Posten’. In 2015, its headquarters was the target of an attack that left twelve dead.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
