PARIS, 17 October, 2020, (TON): A man killed a teacher for his blasphemous act in France. On Friday afternoon a teacher hosted a class discussion with secondary school students about blasphemy cartoons of Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W). He was a history teacher in a middle school and was knifed to death near the school because of his derogatory cartoons which he showed to his students earlier this month.

Few streets away from the scene the man who killed teacher was shot dead by Police patrol in a residential suburb north-west of Paris.

French President Emmanuel Macron reached at the scene of the attack and said to reporters that “Our compatriot was flagrantly attacked, was the victim of an Islamist terrorist attack, they won’t win... We will act firmly and quickly. You can count on my determination.”

The incident carried echoes of derogatory caricatures published in 2015 by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. However Reprinting the Charlie Hebdo cartoons was not about freedom of speech, it is about using speech to reaffirm domination. The case has sparked public debate in France, a secular country with large Muslim population.  What so ever it is very understandable that all religious traditions have deep connections to specific sacred objects and would be hurt by perceived defilement of their religious traditions. As the republication of derogatory cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo provoked a violent attack in 2015.

European vilifications of Islam have a much olden pedigree than free speech and have nothing to do with humour. Westerners seek to show and reproduce their domination over Muslims by traducing our sacred symbols at will.