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Zineb El Rhazoui, who was luckily in Casablanca the day Islamic State jihadis massacred nine of her magazine colleagues in Paris, said the Islamism of today is “applied Islam” which gives way to terrorism. The outspoken Moroccan/French journalist is carrying on the work of her beloved friends by speaking out against extremism despite being France’s most protected woman, with state-provided armed guards protecting her 24 hours a day. Writing in her controversial new book, Detruire Le Fascisme Islamique (Destroy Islamic Fascism), released in France this week, she said: “When we apply Islam to the letter it gives Islamism, and when we apply Islamism to the letter it gives terrorism. “So we need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace and love. What is a moderate Islamist? An Islamist who doesn’t kill?”

We need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace and love Zineb El Rhazoui

The 34-year-old’s book is dedicated to “Muslim atheists” as she hits out at the archaic application of Islam by terrorists who imitate the first Salafists or “pious ancestors” whose actions Ms El Rhazoui insists have no place in the 21st Century. As Charlie Hebdo’s former religious reporter, Ms El Rhazoui has experienced daily death threats and fatwas since helping produce the magazine’s first survivors’ issue after the attack last January.

Getty•YouTube Charlie Hebdo journalist Zineb El Rhazoui helped produce the first edition after the attack in 2015

She also spoke in Arabic to the Arab press and feels it is her duty to remain in the city which caused her so much horror and to be a strong critic of Islam - a religion she grew up with. Ms El Rhazoui, who describes herself as an “atheist of Muslim culture” told the New York Times’ Women in the World section: “I don’t have the right to renounce my struggle, or to give up my freedom. “If the French state protects me it is not little individual me: What is being protected is my freedom to be irreverent, and freedom of expression, so I should exercise this even more because I enjoy this protection.

YouTube Ms Rhazoui now has to live under 24/7 armed guard

“It’s totally crazy. I have done nothing against the law and have nothing to hide, yet I live with security while those who threaten us are free. “And if you call them by their names you are Islamophobic and racist. I am racist? “I can teach them a few things about Arab culture. I can show them how to discover its richness and the diversity of their culture. “I believe this culture deserves universality because you can be Arab, Muslim and a free thinker.”

Getty Nine Charlie Hebdo staff were killed in the ISIS attack last January

Getty France went into mourning after the Charlie Hebdo attack

In her book she says as a woman who was born and lived in Islamic Morocco and lives in France, she has the right to criticise religion despite the “dictatorship of Islamophobia which says I have no right to criticise!”. She added: “If we criticise Christianity it doesn’t mean we are Christianophobes or racist towards the ‘Christian race’. “You can no longer speak about Islam without saying it’s a religion of peace and love.

Newspaper front pages following terrorist attacks in Paris Thu, January 8, 2015 National newspaper front pages following shootings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine. A stunned and outraged France began a national day of mourning today as security forces desperately hunted two brothers suspected of gunning down 12 people in an Islamist assault on a satirical weekly, the country's bloodiest attack in half a century. Play slideshow PA 1 of 27 The front pages of the UK national newspapers and how they covered the terror attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, in which 12 people died.

“But when you open any book in Islam what do you find? Violence, blood, oppression of women and hate for other religions. “Of course you can find this in other religions, however we are talking about something written many centuries ago during a barbaric time for humanity. “As long as we don’t talk about this, and keep repeating that Islam is a religion of peace and love, many people will continue to believe the Koran is a constitution, and that rather than being a book written 15 centuries ago reflecting a particular context, it is a legal constitution to apply today.”