French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre that left 12 people dead in 2015, has republished highly controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.
The magazine said on Tuesday it was republishing the cartoons to mark the start of the trial this week.
On January 7, 2015, Islamist extremist shot and killed twelve people, including famous cartoonists. Five people died in a related attack in Paris days later.
The two gunmen who targeted the office were killed in police raids, but 14 suspected accomplices are set to stand trial.
Before the attack, the magazine had occasionally printed cartoons of Muhummed, prohibited by the Muslim faith, which lead them to being a target in the massacre.
The latest cover shows twelve cartoons first published by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, then republished by Charlie Hebdo in 2006. One of the cartoons shows the prophet wearing a bomb instead of a turban.
The magazine's editorial said their decision to republish the cartoons days before the trial was for a "good reason."
"We have often been asked since January 2015 to print other caricatures of Mohammed."
"We have always refused to do so, not because it is prohibited - the law allows us to do so - but because there was a need for a good reason to do it, a reason which has meaning and which brings something to the debate."
"We will never lie down. We will never give up," editor Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau wrote.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry slammed the decision to republish the images.
"Such a deliberate act to offend the sentiments of billions of Muslims cannot be justified as an exercise in press freedom or freedom of expression," it tweeted.
The trial, which will run for 10 weeks began on Wednesday.
