Hongkongers clamour for next issue of Charlie Hebdo
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 15 January, 2015, 2:42am
UPDATED : Thursday, 15 January, 2015, 2:42am
Danny Lee [email protected]
A man buys multiple copies of Charlie Hebdo as people queue at a newsstand in Paris. The magazine's normal print run of 60,000 has been expanded to five million. Photo: AP
Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine that was the target of a bloody terrorist attack, will go on sale in Hong Kong today as part of a special print run that has now reached five million copies.
Parenthèses bookstore on Wellington Street has been taking orders from the city's 17,000-strong French expatriate community since Tuesday after word spread that it would be stocking the magazine, which normally has a print run of just 60,000. This issue's print run has already been increased from three million.
Hong Kong will be one of the few - if not the only - places in Asia where the magazine will be on sale. The cover of the new issue features a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed holding a sign that reads "Je suis Charlie", and the headline, in French, "All is forgiven".
However, a local Muslim community leader said the sale of the magazine in the city could provoke anger.
The delivery of the French-language edition is part of a special print run in tribute to 12 people killed in the January 7 massacre when two gunmen stormed the magazine's Paris office. As of Tuesday evening, 150 orders had been placed for the edition, which has a cover price of HK$50.
The bookstore's Swiss owner, Madeline Progin, told the South China Morning Post: "Orders keep coming. Yesterday [Tuesday] morning we had about 30 orders, now we have about 150.
"We have an order for 200, but you know, maybe they cannot print so quickly, so we may receive tomorrow only half our order and the rest by the end of the week."
Progin said she was not worried for the safety of herself, the store, its staff or its customers.
"I've never felt any threat of any kind here," she explained.
Qamar Minhas, chairman of the Incorporated Trustees of the Islamic Community Fund of Hong Kong, said: "This edition will cause a new wave of hatred.
"Muslims will be hurt and upset but our reaction must be our teaching of our Prophet … enduring tolerance, patience and mercy."
Progin said the magazine used to have some subscribers in Hong Kong but the lack of distribution for such a specialist publication meant it was not possible to obtain it regularly.
"We don't sell Charlie Hebdo generally, because we don't have customers for it," she said.
"At the beginning … I contacted [the supplier] and I said I would order about 50 originally, so I think 200 is a lot.
"There are many young French people in Hong Kong I think and many people who want to support [the magazine]."
