Charlie Hebdo is back on crusading for freedom of expression. While the Danish government presented a bill to Parliament on Friday, September 1, banning public defacing of religious objects, the secular satirical French weekly is criticizing Copenhagen's decision to reinstate the crime of blasphemy. The subject will feature on the front page of the Wednesday, September 6, issue.
The newspaper is launching an appeal to "warn citizens committed to democratic values" alongside eight Scandinavian media outlets. Among them, seven Norwegian newspapers and online sites and one Danish media outlet are criticizing the return of this 334-year-old law, which was repealed in 2017.
In recent months, there has been one controversy after another in northern Europe, with Iraqi political refugees repeatedly burning Qurans in front of the press. The Scandinavian far right is exultant at other similar degradations carried out within its ranks. The emotion that swept through the Muslim world at these images of book burning led, for example, to a hundred people attacking the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on July 20.
'An outrageous law'
Against this backdrop of heightened tensions, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard has championed a law designed to "prohibit the inappropriate treatment of objects of significant religious significance to a religious community." Anyone publicly desecrating a Bible, Torah, Quran or religious symbols such as a crucifix will soon face a fine or up to two years imprisonment.
For the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, who were targeted by an Islamist attack on January 7, 2015, this "ad hoc legislation" is worrying. "It's serious that a European country should decide to reinstate a medieval offense," warned the publication's director, Riss, who sees it as all the more symbolically important given that Denmark was the scene of the Muhammad cartoons affair in 2005.
"In doing this, the Danish government is bowing to pressure from Muslim countries," complained Gérard Biard, the weekly's editor-in-chief. "With this scandalous law, the Danish government is being dictated to by authoritarian regimes such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Taliban Afghanistan. The vagueness surrounding this bill, which in reality concerns only the Quran, leaves the door open to all interpretations and therefore all penalties," even though the Danish minister of justice has assured that the law will not cover cartoons.
By embarking on this new battle, and at the risk of being accused of encouraging book-burners, Charlie Hebdo will surprise neither its supporters nor its detractors. "We're not trying to export French-style secularism but to support freedom of expression, which is threatened by this law. Everyone has the right to practise their religion, it's not about the Quran, it's about fighting religious fundamentalism," Riss said. The newspaper is currently in difficulty. Only 17,000 copies were sold on newsstands per week in August, compared with 20,000 in January 2023 and 25,000 in May 2022. Subscribers still hover around 30,000, but this is 3,000 fewer than nine months ago, and 7,000 fewer than in May 2022.