The French cartoonist Luz, who drew Charlie Hebdo’s cover picture of the prophet Muhammad for the edition following the massacre at the satirical weekly in January, has said he will no longer draw the prophet.
“He no longer interests me,” he told French culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles in an interview published on its website.
“I’ve got tired of it, just as I got tired of drawing Sarkozy. I’m not going to spend my life drawing them.”
Islamist militants claiming to be avenging the prophet killed 12 people when they attacked the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, which is known for lampooning Islam, along with other religions.
‘Je Suis Charlie’
For Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is blasphemous, but Charlie Hebdo carried on its cover Luz’s cartoon of a tearful Muhammad holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign under the words “All is forgiven” in the week following the attack.
In an outpouring of solidarity and concern for freedom of expression across France, that edition sold several million copies, rather than the weekly's usual sales of 60,000 copies.
“The terrorists did not win,” Luz said in the interview. “They will have won if the whole of France continues to be scared.”
Reuters