French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has sparked another controversy by releasing a cartoon suggesting that if three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi had survived, he would have grown up to be a sexual attacker.
The drawing was issued after German authorities said that nearly all the suspects in a rash of New Year’s Eve violence against women in Cologne were “of foreign origin”. Police said late Sunday that more than a week on from New Year’s Eve, some 516 complaints had been lodged, including 40 per cent that were related to sexual assault. Witnesses described terrifying scenes of hundreds of women running a gauntlet of groping hands, lewd insults and robberies in the mob violence.
The newspaper, known for its controversial drawings, caused furore when the image drawn by Laurent Sourisseau, also known as “Riss,” a longtime contributor to the newspaper and its current publishing director, suggested that if Kurdi had survived his journey to Europe, he would have become a “groper in Germany”.
Sourisseau was present when extremists attacked the publication’s offices in January last year. That attack left 12 people dead; Sourisseau was shot in the shoulder.
This is not the first time the newspaper has mocked the death of the Syrian toddler. While the world mourned his death, Charlie Hebdo featured two drawings of young Kurdi who was found lifeless on a Turkish beach after a migrant boat capsized while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.
