Editorial: Thousands thumb noses at attack on press freedom

People in Barcelona show solidarity with those killed in the attack on the Paris offices of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Photo / AP

The thousands who poured into the Place de la Republique in Paris and London's Trafalgar Square and gathered at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate offered the best-possible riposte to the storming only hours earlier of the offices of Charlie Hebdo. These were not members of the media intent on expressing solidarity with the French satirical magazine and support for freedom of expression. They were ordinary citizens who had had their view crystallised by the brutal assault by gunmen shouting traditional Muslim exhortations. That freedom, they had clearly decided, must never be restricted.

Their instinct was correct. Freedom of expression is a fundamental principle of democracy, one of the civil liberties held to be essential for the development and progress of individuals and mankind generally. Defending it as an absolute can be uncomfortable or inconvenient. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had requested Charlie Hebdo to show restraint in publishing cartoons of Mohammed. "Is it really sensible or intelligent to pour fuel on the fire?" he asked. His request was rejected, and the potential for reprisals escalated.

As much as the concern of Mr Fabius was understandable in the context of that now-realised fear, the magazine was right to maintain the boldness and brashness of its political satire. A French court confirmed as much when it cleared the magazine of "racial insults" and upheld its right to satirise Islamist extremism. This verdict reaffirmed that people's right to speak their mind should be limited only where it directly threatened harm to others. That, clearly, does not apply to cartoons, no matter how especially distasteful they are to fundamentalist Muslims or the adherents of Catholicism and Judaism, who have also been scorned by the magazine.

With the practising of a religion should come a willingness to defend the right of others to criticise it. But the aim of those who carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo was to silence the magazine. Regrettably, such intimidation has had some success. In the interests of religious senstivity, self-censorship is practised by some, and many countries have wondered whether there should be laws against so-called hate speech. A country as liberal as Sweden has acted. During the term of the previous government here, it was proposed that the law against expressions that may incite racial disharmony should be extended to religion, gender and sexual orientation. Fortunately, the weight of submissions led to the notion being speedily dismissed, and the principle of freedom of expression being upheld.

President Barack Obama has observed that the Paris assault underscored "the degree to which these terrorists fear the freedom of speech and freedom of the press". The same point was made as long ago as 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's supreme leader, issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of novelist Salman Rushdie. The difference now is the loneliness of those who continue to call for the media to show restraint. The people who gathered in public squares were thumbing their noses at that notion, thereby underlining the extent of the terrorists' misjudgment. Such is the consequence of attacks as bloody as that on Charlie Hebdo.