Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned, on Sunday, the terrorist beheading of a French teacher in Paris, affirming that Egypt stands in solidarity with France in such painful circumstances, in order to “combat the phenomenon of terrorism, violence, and extremism, in all its forms and manifestations.”
In a statement by the ministry, Egypt also offered its sincere condolences to the victim’s family, as well as the French government and people.
Demonstrations were held across France, on Sunday, to support freedom of speech and to pay tribute to the French history teacher, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded at a school near Paris on Friday.
Paty’s death occurred at the hands of an 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee, who was shot dead by police after the incident.
The teacher had been the target of online threats for showed his students controversial Charlie Hebdo caricatures of Prophet Muhammad in class, with the father of one schoolgirl launching an online call for “mobilisation” against him, France’s anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said.
Witnesses said the young man, named only as Abdullakh A, was spotted at the school on Friday afternoon, asking pupils where he could find Paty.
The French investigators said they were treating the attack as “a murder linked to a terrorist organisation”, adding that the suspect was not known to intelligence services. He had been granted a 10-year residency in France as a refugee in March.
Chechnya is a Muslim-majority Russian republic in the North Caucasus. France has offered asylum to many Chechens following a war between Russian forces and Islamist separatists in the break-away state during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Sergei Parinov, Spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Paris, said that the “crime has no relation to Russia, because this person had lived in France for the past 12 years”, Russia’s state-run news agency TASS reported on Saturday.
