Hollande: Mainstream Muslims Victimized by Fundamentalism, Intolerance
Last updated on: January 15, 2015 7:43 AM
French President Francois Hollande said mainstream Muslims are the primary victims of "fanaticism, fundamentalism, and intolerance," as the nation deals with the fallout of last week's terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists.
Hollande spoke at the Arab World Institute, which seeks to build closer ties between France and Arab cultures.
He said a crisis like last week's shooting at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine can serve to undermine confidence, or awaken people to, in his words, "shout their message all the louder." But he added that the whole country was "united in the face of terrorism."
The Muslim community in France, Europe's largest, have "the same rights and the same duties as all citizens" and must be protected, Hollande said.
Twelve people died at the Charlie Hebdo offices and five more over the next two days in a terror spree in and around Paris. The terror group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the shootings atCharlie Hebdo, in a video the U.S. government confirmed as authentic.
Two more funerals were being held Thursday for victims of last week's attacks, the latest in a string of solemn ceremonies.
Kerry to travel to Paris
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Paris on Friday to meet with Hollande and other French officials. On Thursday he told reporters in Bulgaria that he wants to give the city of Paris "a big hug" after last week's attacks.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula posted a video online Wednesday, featuring a man identified as Nasr al-Ansi, a top leader of the group. He said his group planned and financed the attack on the magazine headquarters.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Washington is determining what links may have existed between the extremist group and the two gunmen in the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
On Wednesday, the first Charlie Hebdo edition since last week's tragedy hit newsstands. The issue sold out briskly in France, featuring a cover illustration of a weeping Prophet Muhammad under the headline "All is Forgiven."
France announced Wednesday that it is increasing its participation in anti-Islamic State airstrikes by sending its flagship aircraft carrier to the Middle East, following the three-day terror spree last week. A third attacker, who killed four people at a kosher grocery store in Paris, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Man detained in Belgium
On Thursday, Belgian authorities said they had detained a man for arms dealing and are investigating whether he supplied one of the Islamist gunmen in last week's attacks in Paris, prosecutors said.
Belgian media reported that a man had gone to police in the southern city of Charleroi on Tuesday, saying he had been in touch with Amedy Coulibaly, the militant who took hostages in a Jewish supermarket in the French capital and was later killed by security forces.
According to the reports, the man said that he swindled Coulibaly in a car sale, but police later found evidence that the two were negotiating about the sale of ammunition for a 7.62 mm caliber firearm.
“The man is being held by the judge in Charleroi on suspicion of arms dealing,” a spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecution said. “Further investigations will have to show whether there is a link with the events in Paris,” he added.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis spoke Thursday about the Paris attacks while en route to the Philippines.
Francis defended freedom of expression as not only a fundamental human right but a duty to speak one's mind for the sake of the common good, but said there are limits to freedom of expression, especially when it insults or ridicules someone's faith.
Some material for this report came from Reuters, AP and AFP. voa
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