Police take action after beheading of teacher

Thailand seeks to censor protests

THAILAND’S embattled prime minister has said there are no plans to extend a state of emergency outside the capital, even as student-led protests calling for him to leave office spread around the country, but police want to censor coverage of the protests.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government has banned public gatherings of more than four people in Bangkok, and given authorities broad powers to detain people. Protesters have gathered to call for constitutional changes.

POLICE operations are under way after dozens of people allegedly issued messages of support for a man who beheaded a history teacher near Paris, the French interior minister has said.

Gerald Darmanin told radio station Europe 1 that at least 80 cases of hate speech have been reported since last Friday’s attack.

Samuel Paty was beheaded in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of Paris, by an 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee, who was later shot dead by police.

Police officials said Mr Paty had discussed caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed with his class, leading to threats.

French President Emmanuel Macron held a defence council on Sunday at the Elysee presidential palace and the government will reinforce security at schools when classes resume on November 2 after two weeks of holidays, Mr Macron’s office said.

A national homage is to be held for Mr Paty tomorrow.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered on Sunday across France in support of freedom of speech and in memory of Mr Paty.

French authorities said they detained 11 people following the killing. Mr Darmanin said they included the father of a student and an Islamist activist who both “obviously launched a fatwa” against the teacher.

Mr Darmanin said the authorities were also looking into about 50 associations suspected of encouraging hate speech, adding would be dissolved.

The president of the Conference of Imams in France, Hassen Chalghoumi, told French news broadcaster BFM TV: “We are hurt, we are condemning this barbaric act,” adding: “Samuel is a martyr of freedom”.

Mr Chalghoumi, who is an imam in Drancy, a suburb north-east of Paris, said he had received death threats and insults on social media from radical Islamists in recent days.

Justice authorities opened an investigation for murder with a suspected terrorist motive.

At least four of those detained are family members of the attacker, who had been granted ten-year residency in France as a refugee in March. He was armed with a knife and an airsoft gun, which fires plastic pellets.

Anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean

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Francois Ricard said a text claiming responsibility and a photograph of the victim were found on the attacker’s mobile phone.

The French prime minister joined demonstrators across the country on Sunday who had rallied in tribute to Mr Paty. Prime Minister Jean Castex stood with citizens, associations and unions demonstrating on the Place de la Republique in Paris in support of freedom of speech and in memory of the 47-year-old teacher.

Some held placards reading “I am Samuel” that echoed the “I am Charlie” rallying cry after the 2015 attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

The demonstrations came hours after US President Donald Trump sent France a message of solidarity in the wake of the attack.