The attack on Charlie Hebdo is an attack on freedom

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo lambasts, attacks and lampoons absolutely everybody. Its targets include all religions, all identity groups, minorities and majorities. In recent years it has been most prominent for its refusal to apply different treatment to Islam. It knew that carrying on with satire, in the name of free expression, carried a real danger — its office in Paris was firebombed three years ago on account of this, and it still carried on with its irreverence.

On Wednesday morning, two gunmen went into the magazine’s office wielding Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades. Within minutes, 12 people were reported killed. The gunmen’s identity was unknown when The Spectator went to press, but there was not much doubt about what had happened.

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When in 2005 a Danish publication published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, there were riots, lootings and assassination attempts in Denmark and around the world. Nearly all the western media took the lesson of intimidation and refused to run cartoons which might be seen to be critical of Islam. Charlie Hebdo stood almost alone against this. Since that date, it has published many cartoons and caricatures of Mohammed. It has appropriately and justly ridiculed Isis — indeed the last cartoons sent out on Charlie Hebdo’s Twitter feed before the attack was a cartoon of the purported ‘Caliph’ of the self-styled Islamic State, al-Baghdadi.

Whatever the identity of the attackers — whatever their religion or political affiliations — it must be stressed from the outset that however robust the magazine’s position, its journalists did not ‘bring it upon themselves’ or ‘provoke’ their attackers. All blame must be directed at the people who perpetrated this disgusting act and at those who believe that it is acceptable to explain away such intimidation, violence and thuggery.