According to AFP – A German newspaper in the northern port city of Hamburg that reprinted Mohammed cartoons from the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo was the target of an arson attack early Sunday, police said.
“Rocks and then a burning object were thrown through the window,” a police spokesperson told AFP. “Two rooms on lower floors were damaged but the fire was put out quickly.”
The regional tabloid daily, the Hamburger Morgenpost, had splashed three Charlie Hebdo cartoons on its front page after the massacre at the Paris publication, running the headline “This much freedom must be possible!”
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No one was hurt in the attack, which police said occurred at about 01:20 GMT.
Two people were detained, while state security has opened an investigation, police said.
Whether there was a connection between the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the attack was the “key question”, the police spokesperson said, adding that it was “too soon” to know for certain.
Media reports said the newspaper’s publishers had ordered private security protection for the building in the western district of Othmarschen.
German news agency DPA reported that the attack had occurred from a courtyard of the building and hit the newspaper’s archive room where some records were destroyed.
A police spokesperson was quoted as saying that the editorial team should be able to continue work in the building as the damage was relatively minor.
Two Islamic extremists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France on Wednesday, killing a total of 12 people including some of France’s best-loved satirists.
Both men were killed Friday in a stand-off with the French police.
Several German newspapers had published the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons on their front pages Thursday in a gesture of solidarity with the French cartoonists and in defence of free speech.
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