„She leads a clandestine existence, on the move and under 24-hour guard as France’s most protected woman. Yet Zineb El Rhazoui, the Charlie Hebdo journalist who happened to be in Casablanca on January 7 last year, the day terrorists ‚avenging the Prophet‘ massacred nine people at the satirical magazine in Paris, believes she has a duty to defy Islamists desperate to silence her. Shaken but undeterred by the fatwas and relentless, precise death threats issued via social media to ‚kill the bitch‘ since she helped produce the publication’s first survivors’ issue following the attack – and spoke about it in Arabic for the Arab press – the Moroccan-French writer refuses to assume an anonymous identity. Fleeing Paris or abandoning her human rights activism, and her unforgiving critiques of the religion she grew up with, are also out of the question.
‚I don’t have the right to renounce my struggle, or to give up my freedom,‘ says the reporter and sociologist of religion in an interview with Women in the World, during a recent trip to New York, as part of French president Francois Hollande’s delegation when he received the Appeal of Conscience Foundation’s World Statesman Award for 2016. ‚If the French state protects me it is not little individual me: What is being protected is my freedom to be irreverent, and freedom of expression, so I should exercise this even more because I enjoy this protection.‘ (…) In this spirit, El Rhazoui, obliged to spend most of her time in hiding, like Salman Rushdie after his 1989 publication of ‚The Satanic Verses,‘ has taken the high-risk option of publishing an explosive new book about Islam. ‚Detruire Le Fascisme Islamique‘ (‚Destroy Islamic Fascism‘), being released in France this week, takes the battle of ideas directly to the ideologically-driven zealots who inspired the assassins of her dear friend Charb (Stephane Charbonnier), late editor of Charlie Hebdo who preferred ‚to die standing than to live on my knees.‘“
(Emma-Kate Symons: „Zineb el Rhazoui, Charlie Hebdo survivor, discusses why the world needs to ‚Destroy Islamic Fascism‘“)
Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube.
Mehr erfahren
Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube.
Mehr erfahren
Alle Videos des Interviews finden Sie hier.
