FRANCE:French secularism collided with Muslim devotion in a crowded, airless French courtroom yesterday, on the opening day of the trial of Philippe Val, the editor of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Val was the first to take the witness stand. Why had he published the "Muhammad cartoons" a year ago, in the midst of the month-long, worldwide crisis that claimed some 50 lives? Judge Jean-Claude Magendie asked.
Out of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper which first published them in September 2005, Val said. And out of solidarity with the editor of France Soir newspaper, who was sacked for printing the same drawings.
Where does freedom of expression end and the right to respect for one's religious beliefs begin?
Is there a difference between Islam and Islamism?
By criticising Islamist political violence, does one insult all Muslims?
These questions were debated passionately for more than eight hours.
The fact that there was little reaction when the cartoons were initially published showed that Syria and Iran used them as a pretext to stir up Muslim opinion four months later, Val claimed.
"In Syria and Iran, demonstrations happen only if they are authorised and orchestrated. The fact they burned Danish embassies upset me. Burning embassies is an act of war. Solidarity with the Danes was one more reason to publish the drawings," said Val.
The Enlightenment was evoked repeatedly by the defendant, his lawyers and witnesses.
"The culture of the Enlightenment tells us that knowledge must guide man," Val said. If people did not challenge religious doctrine in Europe, women's rights, abortion, the rights of homosexuals and stem cell research would all be decided by the Church, he claimed.
Alluding to Muslims, Val said, it was important "not to dishonour ourselves in the eyes of those who blackmail us". Every time one backed down, he added, "it only makes them contemptuous of us".
Ouassini Mebarek, the lawyer for the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF), which is affiliated with the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, implied Val published the cartoons to turn a quick euro.
Val admitted selling 450,000 copies of the special edition, compared to a usual press-run of 70,000.
The magazine remained on French newsstands for two weeks instead of one.
When Mebarek questioned Val on the difference between Islam and Islamism, someone in the audience shouted "dirty fascist" at the Muslim lawyer.
Judge Magendie said that if anyone else shouted insults he would have them arrested.
Val quoted Shakespeare, and Magendie said, "This is getting out of control . . ." Did Val know the pillars of Islam? Mebarek continued.
"Euh . . . the pilgrimage to Mecca, charity . . ." the editor replied.
"The first pillar is the profession of faith. There is one God and Muhammad is his prophet," Mebarek intoned.
"You published a caricature of the prophet with a bomb in his turban, and you didn't consider that you were hurting all Muslims?"
"What is sacred to a religion is sacred only for that religion," Val said.
"If we had to respect everything that was holy to every religion, it would be impossible to live."
Salah Djemai, the lawyer for the World Islamic League, the Mecca-based charity founded by Saudi Arabia in 1962, accused Val of "fanning the flames".
"Don't you think you went a little too far?" Djemai asked.
"The flames were already there for a long time," Val said. "[Attacks in] Paris, Bali, London, Madrid, September 11 . . . This terrorism that frightens everyone . . .
"If we no longer have the right to laugh, not at terrorism, but at terrorists, what is left to us?
"In the name of what should it be forbidden to mock people who commit such acts?"
Georges Kiejman, one of Val's lawyers and a close friend of the Mitterrand family, created a sensation by reading a letter of support for Charlie Hebdo from the right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.
"I prefer an excess of caricature to the absence of caricature," Sarkozy said.
As interior minister, Sarkozy is in charge of relations between the state and religious leaders.
By nightfall, the head of the Muslim Council threatened to resign over Sarkozy's comment.
Lhaj Thami Breze, the president of the UOIF, best expressed Muslims' sense of outrage over the cartoons.
"There is only one reading of them: that the prophet teaches terrorism to all believers," he said.
"We wouldn't have minded if you had shown Osama bin Laden . . . anyone but the prophet."
Kiejman repeatedly quoted bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, justifying violence in the name of Islam.
"Bin Laden is not our pope," Breze said.
"The vast majority of Muslims do not agree with what he says. We went to the justice system to defend ourselves, to channel our frustrations.
"There were no incidents [in France]. We are in a country of law, but no one is above the law. You aggressed us; you aggressed Muslims."
Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who originally commissioned the cartoons, said he did so after a series of incidents of self-censorship involving artists, a translator, a comedian and the Tate Gallery.
"Some Muslims were insisting on special treatment of their religious views in the public domain," he said.
"In a modern, secular democracy, everyone must accept ridicule within the framework of law.
"Muslims must accept that they are exactly the same as everyone else."
François Hollande, the head of the French Socialist Party and the companion of the presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, also took the stand to defend Charlie Hebdo.
"It's not about questioning this or that religion, but a deviation of religion," said Hollande.
Richard Malka, one of Val's lawyers, complained that "all attacks on deviations of Islam are labelled Islamophobic".
It was "obvious that Islamists use belief to violent ends", Hollande said.
"Terrorists themselves say they are acting in the name of religion. The terrorists themselves establish the link between their acts and their religious beliefs."
Nonetheless, Hollande insisted, "The Muslim religion is not being attacked as such."
If Charlie Hebdo is convicted of insulting Islam, Hollande predicted, "newspapers will think twice before publishing articles or drawings, and in a way, censorship will have been established."