Five million copies of Wednesday’s first edition of the satirical French journal Charlie Hebdo since 10 of its staff were killed by Islamist extremists last week are being distributed to at least 25 countries.
But South Africa is not one of them.
After a sell-out in France on Wednesday and huge demand from many other countries, the initial print order - before the attack only about 50 000 - would be raised from three to 5 million, said Veronique Faujour, president of the distributor MLP.
However Stephane Caillard, MLP’s export manager, told Independent Newspaper that “South Africa won’t be supplied as our local distributor is no longer working for us”.
It appears this distributor was CNA.
Caillard provided a list of 25 countries or territories to which the company was sending copies of Charlie Hebdo’s “survivors’ edition”, as it is being called.
But news reports have indicated that the magazine is also being distributed to other countries, not on the list, such as Australia and India, but not South Africa.
Curious South Africans also appear to be unable to see the edition online as Charlie Hebdo’s website seems to be down, possibly hacked by its enemies. Before that it seemed only to be carrying an appeal for donations.
But the readers of at least two South African newspapers, the Citizen and Beeld, at least saw images, which they published on Wednesday of the cover of the edition. It has a cartoon of Muhammad, crying, against a green background, holding a board saying “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie).
Above his image are the words “All is Forgiven”.
“I am Charlie” is the slogan or hashtag that has gone viral since the attack by two brothers on the Paris offices of the journal on January 9 in which 10 staff members, including five cartoonists, and two police officers died.
Other South African papers presumably decided not to publish images of the cover to avoid offending Muslim readers as depicting Muhammad is not allowed in their faith.
The publisher of Charlie Hebdo had been reported in the French media as saying that Wednesday’s edition would be translated into 16 languages.
But Caillard said that for the moment the logistics of distributing just the French edition were enough and a decision would be made later about other languages.
MLP told Australian media that the latest edition would be available in Australia for the first time. However, sales are likely to be limited, especially because Australia’s federal human rights commissioner warned that many of the magazine’s cartoons would currently be banned under racial discrimination laws.
CNN also reported that the special edition would not be available in the US for several days.
The edition on Wednesday sparked a police search and a court ban in Turkey and criticism by Iran but Parisians lined up to buy it and touts began selling it at black market prices.
If you took a poll in Muslim nations such as Jordan, there would “probably be overwhelming opposition to the Paris attacks AND overwhelming opposition to the right to blaspheme,” Shadi Hamid, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said on Twitter.
Turkish police searched trucks carrying the Cumhuriyet newspaper as it published some of the cartoons, setting up a blockade of its offices in Istanbul as a security precaution.
Cumhuriyet said police allowed distribution to proceed after thinking that Charlie Hebdo’s latest cover featuring the prophet wasn’t published. But two Cumhuriyet columnists had used small, black-and-white images of the cover as their column headers in Wednesday’s issue.
Ankara mayor, Melih Gokcek, from the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party, accused Cumhuriyet via his Twitter account on Wednesday of attempting to “provoke” by publishing the caricatures.
“Don’t fall into Cumhuriyet’s trap,” Gokcek said. “They are aiming to provoke an attack against them and depict Muslims as aggressors to the world.”
A court in the south-eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir ordered the telecommunications authority to ban access in Turkey to websites showing Charlie Hebdo’s front cover, according to local news agencies.
A lawyer in Diyarbakir had filed a petition saying the websites were a danger to “public order”.
In Tehran, the Iranian foreign ministry condemned the new Charlie Hebdo issue as provocative.
Iran “condemns terrorism anywhere in the world” because it is “against Islam’s teachings”, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said.
“On the other hand, we disapprove of provocative moves and this weekly’s undertaking is insulting and will provoke the feelings of Muslims.”
Meanwhile in Paris, by very early on Wednesday morning, copies at a kiosk at Porte de Versailles and at the Opera metro station were already sold out.
“I only had four copies,” said Patricia, a kiosk manager at Avenue Victor Hugo in the 16th arrondissement who didn’t give her last name.
“I’m very disappointed. I already had orders from 83 people. I would have needed at least 400 copies,” she said.
A seller on EBay’s French site was asking E70(R945) for a copy, while one on the UK site asked for £122 (R2 130). The price printed on the regular edition is E3.
Some earlier editions of the magazine are going for as much as E30 000 on EBay’s French site. Distribution of the copies will continue over the coming days.
In London, Anjem Choudary, a British Muslim activist suspected of promoting terrorism, said in an interview with the Independent newspaper on Wednesday that the latest edition was an “act of war”. Choudary has been affiliated with the outlawed al-Muhajiroun network and was released on bail in September.
Newsagents in the UK were stocking up on the magazine all the same. Navin Bhuptani has ordered 30 copies of Charlie Hebdo for his Goswell News shops after a number of customers requested it.
He expects the issues, which will retail for £3.50 each, to be delivered by distributor Smiths News on Friday.
“I’ve had a lot of demand for Charlie Hebdo,” said Bhuptani, 64. “Usually this type of demand has happened when a new royal is born, or when Princess Diana passed.”
Goswell News, situated in London’s financial district, sells more than 100 magazines and newspapers from across the globe each week, with titles including Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine and Arabic newspaper Al Hayat.
Bhuptani said he’s not worried about security and trusts his magazine distributor Smiths News for guidance. A Smiths News spokeswoman confirmed they were carrying the title but declined to say how many or when it would arrive in the UK.
Charlie Hebdo has been published every Wednesday for the past 22 years. Religion, sex, death, politicians - nothing and no one has been off-limits.
Five of its best known cartoonists - who went by the pen names Charb, Honore, Cabu, Wolinski and Tignous - were among those killed in the shootings. Four members of the magazine’s newsroom are still in hospital.
In its current form since 1992, the magazine’s irreverent covers have included caricatures of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn dancing in a red tutu, the late singer Michael Jackson as a skeleton soon after his death - with a caption saying “At last I am white”, National Front leader Marine le Pen shaving her pubic hair in the shape of Hitler’s moustache and Pope Francis holding up a pink condom saying “this is my body”.
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