By Yae Lynn Moon
Paris, France: Samuel Paty, a French middle school teacher was found decapitated in the suburb of Paris. His perpetrator, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov was shot dead by the French police minutes after the attack. With the motive of the murder being Islamic extremism and jihadism, the attack was described as “a typical Islamist terrorist attack” by French president Emmanual Macron which created public debates, protests, and rallies about the French secular society after the recent terrorist attacks in France.
What happened?
During a class on freedom of expression, Paty showed his students caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad from a satirical magazine called Charlie Hebdo including a cartoon showing Muhammad naked. This triggered immense criticism from Muslims as any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemous.
The killer, Abdullakh Anzorov who is a Muslim Russian-born refugee asked several students to identify Paty and proceeded to follow him as he left school. Using a knife, Anzorov murdered and decapitated Paty in a street near the school.
After the murder, Anzorov under a pseudonym posted a photo of Paty’s decapitated head on Twitter along with a message: "In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, ... to Macron, leader of the infidels, I executed one of your hellhounds who dared to belittle Muhammad, calm his fellow human beings before a harsh punishment is inflicted on you”. The Twitter account was soon identified by French authorities and Anzorov was shot nine times by the police as they tried to arrest him. After Anzorov was shot dead, a text claiming responsibility and a photo of Paty’s body was found on his phone.
The aftermath and public reactions
Immediately after the first reports of the murder broke out in the news, Paty was hailed as a martyr to freedom of expression. President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the motive of the attack by saying that Paty is a “victim of a terrorist, Islamist attack because he taught the liberty of expression, the liberty to believe and not believe”. Furthermore, President Macron awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits to Paty’s family while describing Paty as a “quiet hero”.
The murder of Paty triggered public debates about the integration of foreigners into French secular society. Many foreigners including Muslim refugees living in France faced many problems integrating into French non-religious society due to discrimination due to their religious beliefs.
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