Hacked Off: Islamic Republic’s Angry Retaliation For Charlie Hebdo’s “Sacrilegious” Cartoons

Days after Charlie Hebdo published caricatures of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, officials in Iran continue to fume against the French satirical magazine as well as France’s government itself.

The cartoons were published in last week’s issue as part of a competition launched in support of the women-led protests that have rocked Iran for nearly four months.

Some entries sought to highlight the fight for more freedoms and women's rights, while others depicted sexually explicit scenes that included the Supreme Leader and other clerics. Many cartoons pointed to the bloody crackdown by Iranian authorities on the protest movement.

The caricatures did not amuse the clerics, and they let their displeasure be known to the French.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador to protest the "sacrilegious" cartoons mocking Khamenei, who has held power in Iran for more than 30 years, and called on France’s government to hold "the authors of such hatred" to account. Iran also announced that it was closing a French research institute in Tehran in retaliation.

The Iranian Embassy in Paris, meanwhile, issued a press release calling the publication of the caricatures "unjustifiable by the principle of freedom of expression" and said the move symbolizes "the very negation of human rights.” Describing the caricatures as “particularly obscene and degrading toward women,” the embassy said it "expects the competent French authorities to take the necessary and immediate measures in the face of this review."

In response, Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief jokingly announced this week that “the best caricature of the mullahs' regime, the one that says everything about its totalitarian nature and its criminal absurdity, was made by … the Islamic Republic of Iran and its representatives.”

Gérard Biard said the Iranian Foreign Ministry and its embassy in France were declared joint winners of the competition – for holding the French government responsible for Charlie Hebdo’s publications and for giving lectures on media freedom, human rights and feminism.

But Tehran’s reaction was not limited to diplomatic protests.

The magazine’s commercial site was briefly forced offline after being hit by cyberattacks, Charly Hebdo’s managing editor Riss said in an editorial titled “Mullahs attack!”, adding that these attacks were “highly likely” to have been carried out by the Islamic Republic.

“The mullahs' regime feels in such danger that it would consider it vital to its existence to hack the site of a French newspaper. It is both an honor, and above all a proof that their power feels very fragile,” Riss continued.

Charlie Hebdo has a history of pushing the limits of free speech on race, religion, and politics in France, home to Europe's largest Muslim community. The title launched in 1970 after another satirical magazine, Hara-Kiri, was banned for mocking the death of former French President Charles de Gaulle.

The controversial weekly has been the target of several attacks in the past. Eight years ago, 12 people were killed by Islamist militants in an attack at the magazine's Paris office over the publication of cartoons of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.

Amid outrage among Iran’s rulers over the caricatures mocking Khamenei, French politicians on January 7 paid tribute to the victims of the attack, with Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak, saying, "Satire, irreverence, the republican tradition of press cartoons are intrinsic to our democracy. We continue to defend them."

And comments made by the commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on January 10 served as a reminder of the threats that Charlie Hebdo faces for pushing the limits of free speech.

IRGC Major General Hossein Salami mentioned an August 2022 attack in which novelist Salman Rushdie was seriously injured, and warned that Charlie Hebdo’s staff may be subject to similar acts.

Rushdie, a prominent Indian-born, British-American author, lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand in the stabbing attack in the United States.

The author of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous, spent years in hiding after Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against him in 1989.

"You have made a big mistake, and Muslims will take revenge sooner or later, so no one can dare to insult Muslims anywhere in the world," Salami said, adding, “You may arrest the avengers, but the dead will not come back to life."

Iran’s semi-official Tasmin news agency followed suit, advising the French government and Charlie Hebdo to “remember and learn from what happened” to Rushdie.

“Protests against him started [after his novel was published] and spread all around the world and took him to the verge of death," it said.

The cyberattacks and threats against Charlie Hebdo set the tone: the magazine must be reduced to silence.

For that, the Islamic Republic has launched a campaign to rally Muslims across the world against Charlie Hebdo and France, by labelling the cartoons as an attack against Islam, in the hope of triggering a wave of angry demonstrations in mainly Muslim countries similar to those that followed the publication of “The Satanic Verses” and Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the caricatures published last week are yet another sign of “Zionism’s attempts to exercise influence on media in order to promote Islamophobia.”

The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution in Iran also accused the West of targeting the Islamic Republic because it is a “symbol of the fight against suppression and discrimination in the world."

"This recent act is a huge offence to the Muslim world, but it can also be an opportunity for Muslims to show their unity, reinforce their spiritual strength and protect themselves against the enemy's attacks and insults," it added.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council called on Iranians to stage nationwide rallies after Friday prayers on January 13 to “show their anger at this disgusting magazine's actions” and “condemn the French and other western governments' interference in Iran's domestic affairs."