Charlie Hebdo
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CHARLIE HEBDO Trial Law and Conflict 2020 : Student Reflections on the 2020 Charlie Hebdo Trials Trials Hebdo Charlie 2020 the on Reflections Student : 2020 Conflict and Law Law and Conflict: 2020 TABLE OF EDITORS NOTE CONTENTS 1. Note From the Editors (MM & JR) 3 2. The Accused (MA) 4 3. The Attacks that Caused the Trial 6 (SS) 4. That Attacks that were Caused by 8 the Trial (SS) 5. Arriving At the Tribunal de Paris 10 (TE) 6. The Tribunal and its History (RC) (SS) 12 Students of Professor Sharon Weill’s projection from a separate room. The 7. Further Student Observations on 14 Law and Conflict class attended the film, however, will be kept archived the Trial (TE) proceedings of the Charlie Hebdo for 50 years before being released to trial in October 2020. This case is a the public. The fourteen defendants 8. The French vs. USA Legal System 16 historic one, part of France’s grief and are commonly accused of association (MA) national memory. It is also unfolding with an organisation des malfaiteurs, at a unique crossroads of renewed France’s broadly-termed terrorism 9. Association De Malfaiteurs (TE) 18 French terror attacks, a deadly charge. This paper combines 10. Fair trial with supposition of guilt 20 pandemic, the five-year anniversary students’ personal experiences and (JR) of the Bataclan shooting, and new impressions, observations of the debates in French civil society over judicial proceedings, and the larger 11. Masked Personhood: The the state’s control over religion, societal and legal context of this 23 dynamics of Covid (M M) specifically Islam and the sacred momentous trial. 24 principle in France of the freedom of 12. Personal Accounts expression. The Charlie Hebdo case 13. Conclusion (MM) 33 is filmed, which is what allowed us to watch the courtroom proceedings in 2 3 Law and Conflict: 2020 SPIRYT THE ACCUSED There are fourteen people on trial for the 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo Amir Ramdani is suspected of having newsroom. Three of the accused are ab- knowledge of the attack and withhol- sent, having fled to Syria soon after the ding the information from the autho- attack. Although the trial serves as a set- rities. Coulibaly’s partner, Hayat Bou- ting for victims to process trauma, not a medienne, is one of the accused who is single person on trial was present at the absent. She fled to Syria a week before scene of the attack. Each person is accu- the attack. She was previously thought to sed of assisting in the attack to a varying be dead, but recent information points degree. to her still being alive in Syria. Mohamed and Mehdi Belhoucine are accused of The most serious charges are brou- helping Hayat escape to Syria. Both have ght against Alii Riza Polat, 35, who was been killed in Syria or Iraq. close friends with one of the attackers and who is said to have provided the we- The question considered by the court apons used to carry out the murders as is not whether each of the accused ac- well as the money to finance the attacks. tually committed the acts they are ac- He faces life in prison for his involvement. cused of. Each defendant has admitted Despite three failed attempts to flee the to indirectly participating in the attack. country, Polat maintains his innocence. Instead, the court must determine whe- ther each plaintiff was where the terrorist Eight men are accused of supplying attack would take place. The defendant’s weapons to the attackers. Mickaël Pastor knowledge of the attack is what differen- Alwatik’s and Mohamed Fare of selling tiates their participation from criminal to weapons to Coulibaly. Christophe Rau- terrorist. mel, Willy Prevost, and Said Makhlou as- sisted in the purchase of other supplies. And two garage owners, Metin Karasular and Miguel Martinez, and their associa- tes, Michel Catino and Abdelaziz Abbad, are accused of supplying assault rifles, automatic pistols, rocket launchers, char- gers and ammunition, and bullet proof vests. Mikaela Aaland 4 5 Law and Conflict: 2020 THE ATTACKS THAT CAUSED THE TRIAL The Charlie Hebdo attacks is a name they hijacked another vehicle in the 19th were hurt that they needed to explain kilometers north of Paris. In their last that has a strong place in the western arrondissement. while forcing the driver to their children that people were killed futile attempt to throw the authorities world’s consciousness, describing the out of his car, they told him calmly, “If the over drawings that others did not like. off their trails, the brothers drove into terrorist attacks inflicted on the city of media asks you anything, tell them it’s A striking comment made by Frederik an industrial warehouse complex and lights in January 2015. Although many Al-Qaeda in Yemen.” Hufnagel, a journalist who showed up in attempted to barricade themselves recall the Je Suis Charlie movement that solidarity said that “We are not fighting in a maze of printing machinery and ensued in the mainstream media, this At this point, Paris was in a state of Islam. We are fighting terrorists. It is supplies. While the Kouachi brothers attack was not the only to wreak havoc high alert. The killers had escaped, and important that we do not mix the two. were trying to hide from the police, on Paris. A hostage situation in a Jewish French police forces were scrambling, On 9/11, we were all Americans. Today, we Amedy Coulibaly was on the loose in the supermarket in the east of Paris and the trying to connect evidence that would are all Charlie.” affluent suburb of Vincennes, where he murder of a police in Montrouge were lead them to find the brothers. President entered a Jewish supermarket and had all linked to the initial attacks on the Francois Hollande raised the terror alert Unfortunately, this show of French and taken five hostages. Witnesses report satirical newspaper, and conducted by for the Ile de France region, put schools international unity was not the end of the that he was beside himself that the three men who worked in unison. on lockdown, heightened security at terrors that would continue to unfold in Kouachi brothers were freed (regardless houses of worship, news offices, and the French capital. On Thursday, January of the fact that they had not been caught On Wednesday, January 7, one of the began conducting security searches 8 at 8 am, news broke of another attack yet). While in the Hypercacher market, first working days back after the holiday on the metro. The state of emergency in the Parisian suburb of Montrouge. A he ended up killing four hostages, season, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and fear in response to the attack did 25-year-old policewoman trainee named before the store was stormed by French stormed the office of the magazine not stop some 35,000 Parisians from Clarissa Jean Philipe had been shot police, killing Coulibaly in the aftermath. Charlie Hebdo, near boulevard Richard gathering at Place de La Republique, in dead. At the time, authorities believed By Friday evening, Francoise Hollande Lenoir in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. honor of those who had been lost and in that the thirteenth fatality to happen in would address the nation after what felt The brothers moved methodically and a show of strength for the French ideals two days was unrelated to the attacks like centuries, to inform the world that all quickly— their presence was unexpected of liberty and freedom of expression. on Charlie Hebdo. Further investigation three gunmen in the coordinated terror and there was little that could have been Videos from the event display an would bring links between the two attacks were dead, and that four people done to prevent them from killing a barely overwhelming majority of white, French groups of terrorists to light, the man that had also died in the Hypercacher market. armed security guard, the editor in chief citizens explaining their disgust and killed Clarissa Jean Philippe was Amedy and prominent cartoonists, amongst resentment towards a more radical world Coulibaly, a French-Malian man who was other staff who were in a news meeting. growing around them. Their resentment a close friend to the Kouachi brothers-- The brothers fled the office and were towards those who would attack based and he was still a suspect at large. met with police retaliation, but it was on freedom of expression and speech not enough to stop them. They clashed seeps through my computer screen as In the midst of further bloodshed, the with officers three separate times in I watch interviews from that evening. French police were still on a manhunt Sydney Scarpa the 11th arrondissement, finally killing a Some attendees seemed to understand through villages north of Paris, in police officer who lay on the ground in that the growing stigmatization and attempts to find the Kouachi brothers. surrender, on boulevard Richard Lenoir. lack of unity in French society could be On Friday, January 9, the police gained The Kouachi brothers fled the 11th and part of what is to blame for the attacker’s headway on the brothers, prompting moved north in a getaway car, where motives, while others explained that they a shootout on a highway around 40 7 THE ATTACKS THAT WERE CAUSED BY THE TRIAL On September 25, 2020, the Charlie in France that have led officials to grown terrorism that has continued to Hebdo office that was attacked in pursue policy reforms that would unify plague France in the last months.