The Beheading of France – Apollo News

“My son died defending the honor of all Chechens and Muslims in the world,” Abuzayid Anzorov tells a Chechen blogger in June 2021. Anzorov boasts to the man in a hooded jacket and long beard that he is very “satisfied” with his son, while viewers write “May God bless him” in the comments section. Abdoullakh was a “good boy” – the 18-year-old who beheaded the French teacher Samuel Paty on the street exactly four years ago. He severed the 47-year-old’s head with a 35 centimeter long kitchen knife and published a photo of it on the Internet – boasting with the words: I “avenged the prophet”.

Abdoullakh Anzorov wanted “revenge” because Samuel Paty had dared to “humiliate Muhammad.” It was no different for him that the history and geography teacher had shown his students caricatures of the Islamic prophet when he spoke to them about the topic of freedom of expression. Paty didn’t use just any images, but rather those from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – the caricatures because of which 12 people were murdered five years earlier. As a teacher, that was exactly his state mandate. It was his duty to educate the children about the Islamist attack on January 7, 2015 – to make it clear to them that on that day the Algerian terrorists attacked not only individuals, but also freedom of the press and freedom of expression, everything the West stands for had.

For this, the father of a five-year-old son received death threats, he was reported and vilified. A 13-year-old student said that Samuel Paty had kicked the Muslim children out of class. He also showed the children pornographic material, the “naked” prophet. As a good Muslim, the girl protested against the outrageous measure and was then punished by Paty and asked to leave the room. But all of that was a lie. Out of caution, Samuel Paty only told his students that they could look away or leave the room if the pictures made them uncomfortable – whether Muslim or not.

The student who fabricated a racism scandal was – as it later turned out – not even in class that day. But her father apparently bought the story. He became so angry that not only did he complain to the school and the police about discrimination, he published Paty’s name on the Internet. A well-known Islamist preacher also became aware of the smear campaign, who shortly afterwards distributed a video about the made-up story. And it was precisely this video that finally reached Abdoullakh Anzorov via an imam, who immediately ran into the kitchen and told his mother about it. She “cursed” those who drew such caricatures, the father of Paty’s murderer later said.

Abdoullakh Anzorov went with a mission to the Collège Bois d’Aulne, where Samuel Paty taught. He paid students to cover for him and show him who this “infidel”, this enemy of Allah, who deserved his wrath was – he himself didn’t know what Samuel Paty looked like. Anzorov ambushed him a short time later and attacked him not far from the school. He massacred him with his kitchen knife, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” before sending a message to two Islamists in Syria: “I beheaded the teacher. Now I will go to jihad in France.” When one of the jihadists from Idlib replies “Allah’s peace, mercy and blessings be upon you,” Abdoullakh Anzorov is already dead.

While the police shoot Anzorov, Paty’s sister Mickaëlle is in the hospital, where she works as an anesthesiologist. As she later talked to Tf1info She says she received a text message from her mother at “shortly after 8 p.m. It says, “Samuel may have just been killed in front of his college.” To this day, she has never deleted that message. She never forgot her mother saying on the phone: “They cut off his head.” Just like the sight of her brother. When she went to see him in the morgue, she didn’t recognize him – “he had wounds all over his face.” A white sheet was placed around the area of ​​his neck where it was severed. Mickaëlle didn’t want to recognize her brother – “I tried until the end to have the last chance that it wasn’t him.”

But it is him. This is the man with whom Mickaëlle always enjoyed “arguing” and “debating” – who “always had more arguments” and sometimes let her win at the game of chess he loved so much. It’s her big brother Samuel Paty – a passionate teacher who particularly enjoyed working with middle school students. Because this was the age at which he “could do the most to awaken their critical spirit.” Because that was one of his greatest concerns: he wanted his students to start thinking – to debate, to investigate, and not to just believe everything. In short: He was a teacher that many parents would want for their children. A humorous, friendly and introverted man who did not shy away from discourse. In the end, that was exactly his downfall.

However, Samuel’s family cannot and does not want to accept this. His parents and his two sisters, Mickaëlle and Gaëlle, filed a complaint with the Paris public prosecutor’s office in 2022 against the ministries of interior and education – they accuse the state of failing to provide assistance to people at risk and failing to prevent crimes. And they have good reasons for this: Shortly after his excursus on freedom of expression, Samuel received numerous death threats. He lived in constant fear and therefore constantly changed his route home. At one point he even took a hammer with him so that he could defend himself in an emergency. “A weapon of desperation,” says his sister Mickaëlle.

Samuel Paty was alone – unlike Abdoullakh Anzorov. French media revealed that the 18-year-old refugee had extensive contacts with terrorists in foreign war zones – including organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He wanted to go into jihad twice and wanted to fight as a “soldier of Allah” against “infidels” and “idolatries” in Afghanistan and Syria. Just like a half-sister of his did in 2014 – she went to IS in Syria and is therefore wanted by the French authorities with an arrest warrant. Anzorov shared his fantasies on the Internet – he raved about “martyrs”, distributed bloody propaganda videos and networked with other Islamists. Nevertheless, he was unknown to the French counterterrorism services.

Paty’s family is right to ask themselves: How can this be? Mickaëlle in particular cannot forgive. She is still “very angry” four years after her brother’s murder. In a book she published, she describes how there was neither an “awakening nor an outcry” in France. The state did nothing against the “Islamist offensive”. An “offensive” that he has brought into the country with his migration policy – ​​similar to Germany. Mickaëlle says what many people in France and here are thinking: that the situation “has become so critical that we can no longer just react to attacks.” Islamism is a “political project that we must fight against.”

In the end, a statement from Francis Szpiner, the lawyer for Samuel’s ex-wife and his now nine-year-old son, sums it up: “The crime against Samuel Paty is a break in the history of the Republic.” In other words, October 16, 2020 is the day France lost its dignity. The day on which, for the first time, a teacher had to die just because he was doing his job – he had to die because he stood up for the values ​​of the West. He was the first, but unfortunately not the last.

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