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Cartoonist Renald “Luz” Luzier, who designed Charlie Hebdo‘s cover image of Prophet Muhammad after the Paris attacks has said he is leaving the magazin.

Luz is quoted by the French newspaper Liberation as saying that his job had become “too much to bear” following the deaths of his colleagues.

Twelve people were murdered when two Islamist gunmen burst into the Charlie Hebdo offices on January 7.

“Each issue is torture because the others are gone,” Luz told Liberation.

Photo AFP

Photo AFP

Luz joined Charlie Hebdo in 1992 and said his resignation was “a very personal choice”. He will leave in September.

“Spending sleepless nights summoning the dead, wondering what Charb, Cabu, Honore, Tignous would have done is exhausting,” he added.

Within days of the attack, Charlie Hebdo‘s surviving staff produced an edition with the headline “All is forgiven” above Luz’s cartoon of Prophet Muhammad holding a sign saying “Je suis Charlie”.

Pictorial depictions of Prophet Muhammad are considered forbidden by most Muslims.

Last month, Luz announced he would stop drawing images of Muhammad, as it no longer interested him.

He announced his plans to leave on May 18, but said many people were urging him to stay.

“They forget that the worry is finding inspiration,” he added.

Charlie Hebdo, which regularly struggled to make ends meet, is now backed up by tens of millions of euros of funding.

Luz said in a previous interview that financial security had posed questions about its future editorial direction.

ISIS claims it was behind the attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in the Dallas suburb of Garland.

The Islamic State militant group said that “two soldiers of the caliphate” carried out the attack at Garland conference center.

ISIS’ al-Bayan Radio news bulletin said the exhibition “was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Muhammad”.

Both suspects were shot dead after opening fire at the contest on May 3rd.

Correspondents say that it is believed to be the first time that ISIS has claimed to have carried out an attack in the US.Dallas Prophet cartoon attack

“We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of the Islamic State do terrible things,” the statement released by the group said.

Court documents have shown that one of two gunmen, Elton Simpson, who was shot dead during attack, had been a terror suspect.

Elton Simpson had been under surveillance since 2006 and was convicted in 2010 for lying to FBI agents about plans to go to Somalia to engage in violent jihad, or holy war, the files reveal.

A judge found Elton Simpson guilty of making a false statement and he was sentenced to three years’ probation and a $600 fine.

The judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence that the false statement involved international terrorism.

Elton Simpson had shared a flat in Arizona with the person named by officials as the other alleged gunman, Nadir Soofi.

On May 4th, FBI agents searched Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi’s home in Phoenix and a white van parked outside.

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Elton Simpson, one of two gunmen shot dead at an event in the Dallas suburb of Garland exhibiting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad had been a terror suspect, court documents show.

He had been under surveillance since 2006 and was convicted in 2010 for lying about plans to go to Somalia, the files reveal.

Elton Simpson had shared a flat in Phoenix, Arizona, with the person named by authorities as the other gunman, Nadir Soofi.

Both were shot after opening fire at a conference centre near Dallas.

Elton Simpson’s family has said that there was no sign he was planning to carry out such an attack.

“We are sure many people in this country are curious to know if we had any idea of Elton’s plans. To that we say, without question, we did not,” said a statement issued through lawyers in Phoenix.Elton Simpson Garland shooting

The statement, made on behalf of unnamed family members, said his relatives were “heartbroken and in a state of deep shock”.

On May 4, FBI agents searched Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi’s home in Phoenix and a white van parked outside.

According to Arizona court documents, Elton Simpson was charged in 2010 with lying to FBI agents about planning to go to Somalia to engage in violent jihad, or holy war.

A judge found Elton Simpson guilty of making a false statement and he was sentenced to three years’ probation and a $600 fine.

The judge ruled there was insufficient evidence that the false statement involved international terrorism.

The court document also showed that Elton Simpson had been under investigation since 2006 because of his association with an individual the FBI believed was trying to set up a terrorist cell in Arizona.

Elton Simpson had told an informant in 2009 that it was “time to go to Somalia”, adding: “We gonna make it to the battlefield.”

He later said he was planning to travel to South Africa and then on to Somalia.

The incident on May 3rd unfolded when a car drove into the car park of the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, where a Muhammad Art Exhibit organized by the controversial American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) was being held.

The conference included a contest that offered a $10,000 prize for a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims.

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Elton Simpson has been identified as one of the suspected gunmen who attacked an event in the Dallas suburb of Garland on cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Elton Simpson had been previously investigated on suspicion of terrorism offences, the FBI said.

Agents were searching an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona, where Elton Simpson reportedly lived, an FBI official said.

Two gunmen were shot dead after opening fire outside Sunday’s event.

They drove to the Muhammad Art Exhibit in the Dallas suburb of Garland as the event was ending, firing with assault rifles on two officers in a parking lot.

One of the officers, a traffic policeman, returned fire and killed both the gunmen, Garland police official Joe Harn said. The security officer was also shot in the lower leg. He was treated in hospital and then released.

“Obviously they were there to shoot people,” Joe Harn said.

Photo ABC News

Photo ABC News

The event was organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which is run by controversial blogger and activist Pamela Geller.

One of the keynote speakers was the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an outspoken critic of Islam in Western societies.

The conference included a contest that offered a $10,000 prize for a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims.

Officials believe that Elton Simpson sent several Twitter messages before the Sunday’s shooting, including one with the hashtag #texasattack part of which read: “May Allah accept us as mujahideen [holy fighters].”

The Twitter account was later suspended.

Elton Simpson was convicted several years ago for lying to authorities about his plans to travel to Somalia, court documents show.

The bomb squad was called in to search the suspects’ vehicle. They set off several controlled explosions around the vehicle, where they found additional ammunition but no bombs, Joe Harn said.

He would not confirm the identity of the suspects, though he said officials believed they knew who the gunmen were.

The suspects’ bodies remained at the scene on Monday morning, surrounded by dozens of empty shell casings.

Security had been tight ahead of Sunday’s conference and Garland’s mayor acknowledged that there had been a lot of local concern about the event, though police said there had been no credible threats.

A security plan had been put in place over several months, and event organizers paid $10,000 for additional security on the advice of the police, Joe Harn said.

Pamela Geller said she was standing up for free speech, adding: “This terrible incident reflects the need for such conferences.”

“We are continually abridging our freedoms so as not to offend savages,” she said.

Pamela Geller denied she was anti-Muslim, only “anti-jihad”.

Media across the globe respond to the “survivors’ edition” of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo – featuring a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad – with a mixture of anger, concern and solidarity.

“With new cover of French paper, a new set of fears,” says the New York Times on its front page, adding that there is a “dread that Charlie Hebdo may prompt further violence”.

In an op-ed piece in the paper, Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol calls on the Muslim world to ease its concept of blasphemy.

“Rage is a sign of nothing but immaturity,” he says.

“The power of any faith comes not from its coercion of critics and dissenters. It comes from the moral integrity and the intellectual strength of its believers.”

Many Muslim Middle Eastern newspapers – even moderate ones – strongly criticize the magazine’s front-page cartoon of Muhammad.

“Charlie Hebdo continues its provocation,” reads a headline on the front page of Jordan’s establishment daily Al-Dustour.

In the Algerian daily Echourouk, Habib Rashdin criticises the French government for helping to fund the new edition of Charlie Hebdo, saying this “violates all red lines, and is an open crusade against Muslims”.

“It has become every Muslim’s right today to file a lawsuit against the country’s ambassadors over charges of <<insult and contempt for religion>>,” he adds.Charlie Hebdo survivor's issue January 2015

The front page of another Algerian paper, the anti-Islamist Ennahar, features a large picture of a sign saying “Nous sommes tous…Mohamed” (“We are all Muhammad”), in a reference to the ubiquitous declarations of “Je suis Charlie”.

Iran’s official rolling news TV channel IRINN describes the cartoon as “an act of provocation”.

Showing part of the cartoon but without Muhammad, Iran’s English-language international channel Press TV warns that the cartoon “will stir up more hatred”.

In Turkey, Yeni Akit – a paper that supports the Islamist governing party – launches a strongly-worded broadside against Charlie Hebdo and the West in general, under the headline “Ignominy continues”.

“Despite the perilous events, the arrogant magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Western media, under the thumb of Zionist powers, carry on their cowardly attacks against Muslims and the Islamic world,” it thunders.

Secular opposition Cumhuriyet reprinted four pages of the Charlie Hebdo edition as an act of solidarity, albeit without the front-page cartoon of Muhammad.

The daily’s plans prompted a police raid on its printing house on Tuesday evening, although the edition was allowed to go ahead once it was clear that no images of Muhammad would be published.

Two columnists from the newspaper included a smaller version of the cover in their columns online.

Several commentators urge France and other countries to outlaw the insulting of religions and religious figures, saying that failing to do so will only encourage Islamic extremism.

“I look forward to a French law that protects people’s sanctities and beliefs from attack and ridicule,” Idris al-Driss writes in the Saudi daily Al-Watan.

“Freedom of expression should end at and not cross the limits of offending others over their color, race or religion,” he adds.

“Insulting religions should be legally treated as racism.”

In the Lebanese daily Al-Anwar, Raouf Shahouri accuses the West of double standards.

He says some countries penalize expressions of anti-Semitism while “seeing no crime in attacking the prophet of Muslims and hurting the feelings of more than a billion Muslims around the world”.

“This pattern of half-blind western justice is the major source of terrorism,” Raouf Shahouri says.

In France itself, the sales success of the new Charlie Hebdo edition is front-page news for many papers, which pay homage to the satirical magazine. Many of their websites include pictures of Charlie Hebdo‘s cover.

The front page of the left-wing daily Liberation is covered with small copies of the front-page cartoon of Muhammad, with the superimposed headline “Je suis en kiosque” (“I am on sale at the newsagent’s”).

Le Point magazine looks back at the history of Charlie Hebdo, with numerous cartoons from “over 55 years of impertinent illustration”.

Liberal Le Monde strikes a more questioning note, referring on its website to the arrest of controversial comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala for allegedly voicing support for terrorism.

“Charlie, Dieudonne – what are the limits of freedom of expression?” it asks in a headline.

In Germany, the front page of the left-wing Berlin daily Tageszeitung features nothing but a huge image of Charlie Hebdo‘s front-page cartoon.

At the top of the front-page of the liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung, is an image of Charlie Hebdo editor Gerard Briard brandishing the new edition at the magazine’s Tuesday news conference.

In China, state-controlled media voice alarm at Charlie Hebdo‘s decision to feature a cartoon of Muhammad on its front page, saying it unnecessarily provokes Muslims.

An editorial in the tabloid Global Times describes the cartoon as “inappropriate”.

“If Charlie Hebdo remains defiant on issues regarding Islam, it will probably put the French government in a difficult position,” it adds.

In Russia, a commentary in business daily Vedomosti links the debate about Charlie Hebdo and free speech with the West’s conflict with Russia.

It says the attack on Charlie Hebdo has united western European public opinion in defiance and has proven that the Kremlin’s hopes of turning Europeans away from “open society values” and towards its emphasis on “traditional values” are futile.

“Russia has found itself in isolation in the company of marginal politicians and terrorists offended by cartoons,” it says.

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