If there is anyone not afraid of Iran’s new supreme leader, it is the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The magazine’s latest issue, published Wednesday morning, features a caricature of Ali Khamenei, or at least what is left of him.
The cover shows a toilet placed atop a pile of rubble. The Iranian cleric’s signature turban sits on the toilet’s water tank, while Khamenei’s eyes and glasses stick out from inside the bowl.
The cartoon was drawn by Charlie Hebdo Editor-in-Chief Laurent Sourisseau, known as "Riss", a survivor of the deadly January 7, 2015 attack on the magazine’s Paris newsroom. The terrorists behind the massacre, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, pledged allegiance to al-Qaida and justified the attack, which killed 12 people and wounded 11, as revenge for cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
Those same cartoons were also cited as justification for the October 2020 murder of French teacher Samuel Paty, who used them during a civics lesson about democracy. After a parent accused him of insulting Islam, the attacker was incited to assassinate him.
Charlie Hebdo has never shied away from targeting "sacred cows". The magazine routinely mocks all three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, drawing both laughter from readers and outrage from believers. Politicians have also accused the publication of Islamophobia or disrespecting family values.
France, however, strictly separates religion and the state, and the weekly has won every lawsuit filed against it over its cartoons, citing freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion.
This week’s issue includes a special section titled "Charlie Hebdo and the Iranian mullahs, a great love story," featuring a selection of cartoons of leaders of the Islamic Republic from recent years, along with new illustrations marking Khamenei’s death.
The magazine has a long-running dispute with Iran. In December 2022, it announced a caricature contest featuring Khamenei following the killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested and allegedly tortured to death after morality police accused her of improperly wearing her hijab. Her death sparked nationwide protests in Iran, during which women burned their head coverings.
The contest itself was seen as a deliberate provocation, echoing the controversy that preceded the 2015 attack after the magazine republished cartoons linked to a Swedish competition about Muhammad.
The winning cartoons were published in January 2023, triggering a diplomatic crisis between France and Iran. Tehran responded by closing the French Institute in Iran and organizing mass demonstrations against France.
Among the caricatures published at the time were depictions of Khamenei with Pope Benedict XVI making love on the sickbed of the head of the Catholic Church, as well as images portraying the Iranian leader dressed like Marilyn Monroe while Iranian women waved removed hijabs at him in suggestive poses.
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The anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death that sparked Iran’s hijab protests
(Photo: Burak Kara /Getty Images)
France, like their European counterparts, now fears a wave of retaliatory attacks following Khamenei’s death. In a national address Tuesday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the reinforcement of Operation Sentinelle, the military deployment that patrols the country’s streets and protects sensitive sites.
True to its style, Charlie Hebdo boldly marks the death of the controversial leader with a barrage of dark humor targeting the regime’s brutality and religious coercion, reminding the world why “Je suis Charlie.”