Belgian paper that republished Charlie cartoons evacuated after bomb threat

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Maroun Labaki is a journalist at Belgian daily Le Soir where he covers business and European institutions. Originally from the Lebanon, he also keeps track of events in the Middle East.
File photo  of Maroun Labaki , a journalist , who is originally from Lebanon   covers  for the Belgian daily Le Soir business and European institutions as well as the events in the Middle East.

The offices of a Belgian newspaper that republished cartoons from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were evacuated on Sunday after receiving an anonymous bomb threat, its staff said.

The evacuation of Le Soir, a French-language daily, came as thousands of people marched through Brussels in solidarity with France following Islamist attacks on Charlie Hebdo and other sites.

“An anonymous caller made threats against the editorial side of the paper, after which it was decided to evacuate the building,” Maroun Labaki, in charge of the paper’s foreign pages, told the Belga news agency.

The caller told journalists the bomb was “going to go off in your newsroom,” Le Soir journalist Martine Dubuisson tweeted.

Police closed off the road around the paper’s offices.

Le Soir was one of many European papers that reprinted cartoons from Charlie Hebdo including some mocking the prophet Mohammed.

A German tabloid that reprinted them was firebombed on Sunday.

 

Yahoo/AFP

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