2020 Nice stabbing

2020 Nice stabbing

Three people were killed in a stabbing attack at Notre-Dame de Nice, a Roman Catholic basilica in Nice, France. The alleged attacker, Tunisian man Brahim Aouissaoui, was shot by the police and taken into custody. Authorities found items that they said belonged to the suspect, including a Quran, three knives, and two cell phones. The suspect was then taken to hospital, where he was in life-threatening condition.

About 2020 Nice stabbing in brief

Summary 2020 Nice stabbingThree people were killed in a stabbing attack at Notre-Dame de Nice, a Roman Catholic basilica in Nice, France. The alleged attacker, Tunisian man Brahim Aouissaoui, was shot by the police and taken into custody. The attack was carried out over a span of 28 minutes, during which he shouted \”Allahu Akbar,\” repeatedly. Four weeks prior to this attack, French President Emmanuel Macron described Islam as a religion \”in crisis\” worldwide. He vowed to present a bill to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state in France. Two weeks later, a history teacher was murdered and beheaded in the Île-de-France by an 18-year-old Chechen Muslim. The teacher had acquired refugee status in France in March 2020, after the teacher showed Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad to his students. After these events, and Macron’s defence of the cartoons in particular, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for a boycott of French products.

In the days after the attack, police arrested two men who were believed to have been in contact with the attacker immediately prior to the incident. The suspect was then taken to hospital, where he was in life-threatening condition. Authorities found items that they said belonged to the suspect, including a Quran, three knives, and two cell phones. The attacker claimed he knew someone in France and that he would seek out this person for help. In an interview with an Arab television station, Aouissiaoui’s brother said that he did not know the language or anyone there. He had arrived as a migrant in late September 2020 at the island of Lampedusa, Italy, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Tunisia. He was required to spend 20 days in coronavirus quarantine, and he spent most of that time on his phone. He received a notice informing him that he was being expelled from Italy for illegal entry and had until 9 October to leave voluntarily.