Mick Hartley

The trial starts today of French magazine Charlie Hebdo:

Two French Muslim organisations are suing the magazine Charlie Hebdo for printing cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

The Muslim groups charge the magazine with “insulting a group of people on the basis of religion”.

Charlie Hebdo reprinted Danish cartoons that provoked a violent backlash in the Muslim world a year ago.

Supporters of the magazine, including some French Muslims, say the trial is a test case for free speech.

The decision of Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons “was part of a considered plan of provocation aimed against the Islamic community in its most intimate faith,” say the Union of French Islamic Organisations and the Paris Grand Mosque.

It was “born out of a simplistic Islamophobia as well as purely commercial interests”. […]

The two-day trial, opening on Wednesday, is being seen as a test of the boundaries of free speech and religious sensitivities in France.

A group of French academics, including some Muslims, published an open letter in the magazine Liberation on Monday.

“Democrats the world over and especially Muslims hope to see in Europe, and above all in France, a secular haven where their words are not blocked by dictators or fundamentalists.

“If Charlie Hebdo were to be convicted … we would all lose this shared space of resistance and liberty,” the letter said.