The French State Security Council decided on Sunday evening to strengthen the security of schools and their surroundings and to take “concrete action” against individuals and groups that spread hatred. Many participants brought printed slogans #JeSuisProf and #JeSuisEnseignant (# I am a Teacher) at the demonstration on Sunday. Speakers emphasized the importance of protecting freedom of speech and teaching.
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Several thousand people attended a meeting in Paris’s Republic Square, convened by teachers’ unions and other civic associations. The memorial was also attended in Paris by Prime Minister Jean Castex, the chairmen of the main parliamentary parties or former President François Hollande. The memory was supported by the editors of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
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Representatives of the Chechen community in France also expressed their condolences and horror at the murder in the suburbs of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. The main imam of a mosque in Lyon, Kamel Kabtane, said that the high school teacher was only doing his job when he showed the pupils a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad during a freedom of speech class. At Monday’s meeting, other imams from the Lyon region also condemned the act.
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“You will not frighten us. We are not afraid. You will not divide us. We are France, “said Prime Minister Castex on Twitter. According to an investigation by the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, the 47-year-old teacher faced threats on social networks after an hour in which he showed a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. The threats were also addressed to the school where Paty taught.
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Pupil’s father and Islamic activist detained
The father of a Muslim student posted a video on the Internet in which he was outraged that the teacher was showing his daughter a cartoon of Muhammad. In the second video, published after a personal complaint to the principal, he stated the name of the teacher and the school. In the third recording, the father appears again, this time together with an Islamic activist who is known to the French secret services and who threatened to retaliate in the video if the teacher was not removed.
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According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the pupil’s father and an activist, Abdelhaki Sefrioui, a Frenchman of Moroccan origin, were detained by police at the weekend. Nine other people ended up in custody with them.
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“Apparently they have declared a fatwa against the teacher,” Darmanin told a pair of detainees on Monday. Fatva is a religious decree that can be issued by Muslim authorities and that justifies or justifies certain actions.
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Eighty investigations
The Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, denied the information that Paty would be in danger of being penalized by his superiors for the lecture. On Wednesday, France will commemorate the brutal death of a teacher in a nationwide ordeal.
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According to Darmanin, the police launched more than eighty investigations on Monday, which mainly concern “hatred on the Internet”. The suspects come from an Islamist background, and according to the DPA, many of them approved of Paty’s murder. Several police officers under investigation have also been detained, others are about to be detained. Police killed the perpetrators of Friday’s murder with nine rounds shortly after the crime.
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According to Darmanin, the new cases are “not necessarily” directly related to the investigation into the murder of teacher Paty, but rather part of a new strategy to combat radical Islamism, agreed on Sunday night by President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Jean Castex’s government.
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The French interior minister also said on Monday that he was considering dissolving some Muslim groups. One of them is the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF). According to Darmanin, there are indications that these are “enemies of the republic”.
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