French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo said Monday it was pressing charges after receiving fresh death threats over a cartoon of the religious scholar Tariq Ramadan who faces rape allegations.

The provocative magazine suffered a deadly terrorist attack in 2015 after publishing blasphemous cartoons.

The Swiss academic has been accused of rape by two women after the Harvey Weinstein scandal unleashed a wave of sexual abuse accusations worldwide.

Ramadan, 55, has furiously denied the accusations as a "campaign of lies launched by my adversaries."

"Rape," reads the caption on Charlie Hebdo's cover. "The defense of Tariq Ramadan."

Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau, the magazine's editor, said the threats and hate mail had "never really stopped" after the January 2015 terrorist attack in which 12 people were gunned down at its offices.

"Sometimes there are peaks when we receive explicit death threats on social media - this has been the case once again," he told Europe 1 radio.

"It's always difficult to know if these are serious threats or not, but as a principle, we take them seriously and press charges."

Source: Khaleej Times