THE KILLER WAS AN 18 YEAR OLD REFUGEE WHO HAD JUST BEEN GRANTED RESIDENCY IN FRANCE. NOW SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED FUEL THE HATE CAMPAIGN ARE ALREADY GETTING REDUCED SENTENCES.
In October 2020, 47 year old French teacher Samuel Paty was brutally murdered outside his school in Conflans Sainte Honorine near Paris.
His lesson focused on freedom of speech and included Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
According to reports, Paty even allowed Muslim students to leave the classroom beforehand if they felt offended by the images.
But an online outrage campaign quickly spread against him.
Activists and angry parents accused him of insulting Islam, and videos targeting Paty circulated widely online.
Days later, 18 year old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Russian born refugee of Chechen origin who had recently received a 10 year French residency permit, traveled to the school, paid students to identify Paty, then stabbed and decapitated him outside the gates.
Investigators later found extremist messages where Anzorov claimed he had “avenged the prophet.” While the attacker, Abdoullakh Anzorov, was shot dead by police at the scene, nearly 14 other individuals later faced trial for helping create the climate that led to the murder.
The aftermath shocked France even further. While many condemned the murder, others blamed French secularism and free speech itself for “provoking” Muslims. Some voices in Chechnya even reportedly praised the killer as a “hero.”
French courts later convicted multiple people connected to the events leading up to Paty’s murder.
But in March 2026, some of the sentences were reduced on appeal. Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui kept his 15 year sentence for helping fuel the online hate campaign. Brahim Chnina, the father who helped spread false accusations against Paty based on his daughter’s lies, had his sentence reduced from 13 years to 10 years.
Two associates who helped Anzorov buy weapons also saw their sentences cut dramatically from 16 years down to just 6 and 7 years after the court removed the terrorism element from parts of the case. Meanwhile, the teenage girl whose false claims triggered the smear campaign received only a suspended sentence.
Now many Europeans are asking: If a teacher can be publicly targeted, hunted down, and murdered for teaching freedom of speech, then what values are Western societies actually protecting anymore? And when fear of causing offense becomes stronger than defending free speech itself, who decides what can no longer be said.
