Charlie Hebdo ‘Survivor’s Issue’ To Be Released Outside Of France Next Week

Due to global attention because of the massacre at France’s satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the weekly will release a “survivor’s issue” of the paper next week. Much of the world is unfamiliar with the publication, but with the spotlight on the events that took place last week, the surviving staff members of the weekly decided to write a special issue that will be available on Wednesday.

As Yahoo! News reported, the weekly publication usually prints 60,000 copies each week, but approximately one million copies of the special issue will be printed instead. Just last week, Charlie Hebdo was on the brink of going out of business, but the terrorist attacks on its headquarters has renewed interest in the publication.

Many countries have never seen an issue of Charlie Hebdo, which is a cartoon-filled publication that satirizes current events and stretches the boundaries of good taste as far as they can. The company that prints the French newspaper, MLP, has deals set up in other countries with press distribution groups that will distribute the issue. Naville in Switzerland and SGEL in Spain will sell the edition, and there are on-going negotiations with companies in other countries, such as Canada, to distribute the “survivor’s issue.”

As the Guardian reported, the companies which will get the special issue distributed to the public will do so for free, and the money gained from sales of the newspaper will go to the families of the 12 people killed in the Charlie Hebdo attack, five of whom were the paper’s leading cartoonists.

The chief editor of the paper said the staff is working for free on the issue, and it will contain cartoons from the entire staff, including some from the slain cartoonists. Keeping the newspaper running is seen in France as a testament to free speech and an act of defiance against Islamic extremists trying to shut it down.

Depending on the cartoons that will be published, Charlie Hebdo could face fresh attacks. Islamists were suspected in an attack on the newspaper in 2011 when it was firebombed. Fortunately, at the time of that attack, the newspaper’s offices were empty. As the Inquisitr reported, a German newspaper was set on fire early Sunday morning after they published the same cartoons that caused the attacks on Charlie Hebdo.

[Image from ABC News]