Three years ago, Charlie Hebdo editor in chief Stephane Charbonnier said he wasn't afraid of threats against the satirical newspaper. Today, Charbonnier and 11 others were killed by masked gunmen.
"If we worried about the consequences of each of our drawings in each of our 1,057 issues, then we would have had to close shop a long time ago," Charbonnier said in 2012. His statements came after Charlie Hebdo was fire-bombed in 2011.
"Extremists don't need any excuses," Charbonnier said in 2012. "We are only criticizing one particular form of extremist Islam, albeit in a peculiar and satirically exaggerated form. We are not responsible for the excesses that happen elsewhere, just because we practice our right to freedom of expression within the legal limits."
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Charlie Hebdo was no stranger to controversy, criticizing Islam and printing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
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