French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is facing backlash over a new cartoon suggesting three-year-old Alan Kurdi would have grown up to be an “Ass groper in Germany.”
Images of the toddler lying dead, face-down on a Turkish beach emblazoned newspaper front pages around the world in September, drawing renewed attention to the Syrian refugee crisis.
Tima Kurdi told CBC News the cartoon is “disgusting,” adding she hopes people will respect her family’s pain.
“We're trying to forget a little bit and move on with our life. But to hurt us again, it's not fair,” said the Port Coquitlam, B.C. resident.
The cartoon, under the heading “Migrants,” includes a small drawing of the iconic photo of the Syrian toddler in the sand next to the line, “What would little Alan have grown up to be?”
Below, two men — one with a pig-like snout — are drawn with arms outstretched and chasing two screaming women in dresses, both running away.
Its caption reads: “Ass groper in Germany.”
Merkel recognizes ‘new facet’ to migrant policy
The cartoon comes weeks after dozens of women in Cologne, Germany reported being robbed and sexually assaulted by groups of men on New Year’s Eve. Of the reports police received, two teenage girls have come forward to say they were raped.
According to The Atlantic, as many as 1,000 migrant men of “Arab and North African origin” mobbed women in the Cologne attacks — a detail that has cast increased scrutiny over the country’s refugee policy.
The events of New Year’s Eve have dramatically exposed the challenge we’re facing, revealing a new facet that we haven’t yet seen,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday, over a week after the attacks.
On Wednesday, the country’s justice minister announced new rules to lower the criminal threshold and allow authorities to deport migrants found guilty in sexual and physical assault cases as early as February.
Authorities say they’ve received 561 criminal complaints related to the New Year’s Eve mob assaults.
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