Charlie Hebdo magazine's editor and another journalist have distanced themselves from the Prophet cartoon contest in Texas that came under attack by two gunmen on Sunday, stating that they were against racism.
Gerard Biard, editor of the magazine whose staff members were gunned down by two gunmen in January, said Charlie Hebdo had 'nothing to do' with the people behind the controversial 'Draw the Prophet' contest.
On Sunday, two gunmen opened fire at the Muhammad Art Exhibit event at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, where the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) had organised a contest to draw cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.
While the gunmen were killed before they could do harm, comparisons were drawn with the January attack on Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris.
"There is absolutely no comparison," Jean-Baptiste Thoret, the magazine's film critic said on PBS, according to AFP, which cited an advance transcript on Monday.
"You have a, as you said, a sort of anti-Islamic movement (in Texas)... the problem of Charlie Hebdo is absolutely not the same," Thoret said.
Thoret had survived the Charlie Hebdo attack as he was late to work.
"It was just a question of criticizing, you know, all the kinds of religions, and not mentioning people in particular. It had nothing to do with that really," he added.
Biard said the magazine only drew the Prophet if there was a mention in the news.
"We don't organize contests. We just do our work. We comment on the news. When Mohammed jumps out of the news, we draw Mohammed. But if he didn't, we didn't," Biard said.
"We fight racism. And we have nothing to do with these people," he said, referring to the Texas event.
Pamela Geller, president of AFDI which organised the Prophet cartoon contest, is known to be an outspoken critic of Muslim extremism, and is often tagged as an Islamophobic.
She also heads the movement 'Stop Islamization of America'.
Before Sunday's attack, she was most recently in the news for winning the right to put up the controversial bus ads refering to 'Muslims killing Jews' on New York City buses.
The ads, funded by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group referred to as anti-Muslim, show a man in a scarf next to the words "Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah".
