Samuel Paty and the world’s forgotten blasphemy laws

A schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was decapitated in Paris on Friday for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, in what turned out to be a fatal lesson on freedom of expression. It is the second Islamist attack in the city in less than a month, after a Pakistani man injured two near the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in late September. The latest spate in Islamist violence comes after the satirical French publication decided to republish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad last month to coincide with the trial of the alleged attackers of the original 2015 terror attack on Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed.

There is a grotesque symbolism to the terror attack on Paty. The act of decapitation itself should carry sufficient weight to jolt the entire populace, but it takes whole new proportions if the victim is a teacher. That is perhaps why thousands in France are rallying for Paty, exclaiming ‘je suis Samuel’.