Brazilian satirists declare solidarity with slain French

Brazilian satirists on Wednesday expressed solidarity with their slain counterparts from French weekly Charlie Hebdo, who were killed in last week’s deadly attacks by Islamic extremists.

Ziraldo, 82-year-old doyen of Brazilian satirists and a friend of slain cartoonist Georges Wolinski, said he had suffered death threats himself while working at a journal that opposed the military dictatorship of 1964-85.

He told AFP that Wolinski “was a warrior, a warrior with ideas.”

“The thing which struck me most about him was what he told me one day: ‘If you allow yourself to be intimidated, if you change path, or stop producing your journal, then they will have won… You have to carry on until death.'”

Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in three days of attacks in and around Paris last week, including at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, where 12 people died.

“The West cannot live under threat; the French people cannot live under the permanent threat of terror,” Ziraldo said.

Comedian Marcelo Madureira insisted: “The satirist must continue making jokes. You have to laugh at and mock all of this.”

“And sometimes we get beaten up for it. And sometimes even killed,” he said.