Tag Archives: charlie hebdo

Mark Wright

Paris – no knee-jerk responses, but no cop-outs either

By Mark Wright | Thu 19th November 2015 - 1:00 pm

The worst terrorist attack in western Europe for a decade has left us all feeling numb. Our thoughts go out to the bereaved and injured. But inevitably our minds look to the consequences. What we must avoid is any knee-jerk responses. Two such responses we must avoid are: first, a rush by governments to remove yet more of our hard-won freedoms; and second, a rush to close our borders to refugees coming from the Middle East.

Our freedoms of speech, expression and religion, and our rights to privacy and to live our lives as we want were hard won over many centuries and we must defend the honour of those who fought and sometimes died to secure them for us. When it comes to refugees from the Middle East, the first thing we should remember is that this type of horrific slaughter is exactly what the refugees are fleeing from. The terror we saw in Paris should make us more acutely understanding of why the refugees are fleeing, because attacks like this have been going on in Syria and Iraq now for a decade.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 39 Comments
Paul Walter

Questioning newsagents about Charlie Hebdo sales – the police need to sort themselves out

By Paul Walter | Wed 11th February 2015 - 12:10 pm

The Guardian reports that police from several UK forces have questioned newsagents about sales of the Charlie Hebdo post-massacre issue. It’s a patchy phenomenum. Police in Wiltshire have apologised for doing it. There was a phone call from a Cheshire police person. And in Dyfed-Powys a newsagent reports being questioned for half an hour by police in her shop. A police spokesman there said:

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 18 Comments
John Tilley

Opinion: Deliberately offensive cartoons did not begin in Paris in the last few weeks

By John Tilley | Wed 21st January 2015 - 10:43 am

george iv a voluptary gillray
James Gillray: “A voluptuary under the horrors of Digestion”, 1792, depicts the Prince of Wales at the time.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 65 Comments
Zaheer Rayasat

The Independent View: After Charlie Hebdo, we must not sacrifice democratic ideals in the face of fear

By Zaheer Rayasat | Wed 14th January 2015 - 11:54 am

The images of masked men walking around with assault rifles including the brutal execution of a French policeman will fill many of us with terror and fear. The chilling words of Charlie Hebdo writer Laurent Léger on the phone to his friend ‘Call the police. It’s carnage, a bloodbath. Everyone is dead’ are chilling.

It is tempting at a time like this to seek security at all costs and those in power are usually all too willing to oblige. We ask to be kept safe and they are more than happy to play the paternalistic state. They give the caveat that we must give up certain freedoms in order to achieve the safety that we crave both for ourselves and our loved ones.

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Posted in News and The Independent View | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Fadel Galal

Opinion: A personal view of the Paris tragedy

By Fadel Galal | Tue 13th January 2015 - 8:55 am

With the recent tragic developments in France I urge the government and political leaders to re-think our approach in facing fundamentalism and terrorism. The concept of security and defence alone is the traditional tested & failed approach. So is our approach in seeking alliance with suppressive regimes in the Middle East that prevent decent or religious movements that would allow their ideology to evolve in a non-violent manner. The end result is Middle East instability spilled onto our streets and politicians starting to take sides. This is the wrong approach and does nothing to help keep such conflicts away from our shores. We need to urgently and seriously consider the following key policy changes;

We need to help develop a more tolerant version of Islam within Europe which respects our values and principles. We should do this with the help of moderate religious leaders and scholars. We should help drive this approach throughout Europe.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 49 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – We have experienced anarchy like this before. We should not over-react to it

By NewsHound | Mon 12th January 2015 - 2:00 pm

PAddy Ashdown by Liberal DemocratsWriting in the Independent on Sunday yesterday, Paddy Ashdown compared the violence in Paris with earlier events:

You do not have to be a young Muslim living in the 21 century to be subject to radicalisation. It has always, down the ages been possible to persuade young men (and a few – a very few young women) of all faiths and none to the believe that is noble to kill innocent people in pursuit of what they have been persuaded is a great cause.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 10 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink Special: Martin Horwood’s cartoon column for his local newspaper in tribute to Charlie Hebdo victims

By NewsHound | Mon 12th January 2015 - 10:26 am

Martin Horwood, Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham is also a skilled cartoonist.

He writes a regular column for the Gloucestershire Echo. This week, he felt it was time to pick up the pen again “for the right to write and draw and think in freedom.”

Martin Horwood cartoon column

 

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

Je suis encore Charlie

By Paul Walter | Sun 11th January 2015 - 12:54 pm

It was a “you’ll remember where you were when you heard the news” moment.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 14 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg We must always be free to criticise ideas, even religious ones

By NewsHound | Fri 9th January 2015 - 2:30 pm

A powerful article in today’s Telegraph passionately defending the right to free speech by Nick Clegg:

Every so often we are confronted by events that force each of us to take a clear stand – and a side. The attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo was just such a moment, demanding a straight answer to a simple question: “are you Charlie?” You don’t have to agree with everything, or even anything, that Charlie Hebdo published to “be Charlie” – you only have to wish to protect the freedoms and rights that define liberal societies like ours.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 48 Comments
The Voice

Êtes-vous Charlie?

By The Voice | Fri 9th January 2015 - 11:31 am

There was a bit of a discussion on Twitter yesterday about the use of the hashtag “Je suis Charlie.” Some people are uncomfortable about being seen to endorse a publication whose views they did not agree with. Here are two opposing views from George Potter and Caron Lindsay:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 133 Comments
The Voice

Je suis Charlie

By The Voice | Thu 8th January 2015 - 7:22 pm

Charlie front page

We have made an extraordinary change to our home page. We have four “featured post” windows at the top of it. They contain a photo accompanied by a headline. Today we have changed all the photos to show a “Je suis Charlie” image. The headlines then link to articles, on the subject, which we have published so far.

This is a small act, to underline a few things.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Ming Campbell’s response to the Charlie Hebdo shootings worries me

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th January 2015 - 4:40 pm

I was more than a little perturbed when I saw Ming Campbell on the BBC News Channel this morning. He was talking about yesterday’s atrocity at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

He started well enough, saying that this was not just an attack on France but on our values, Then he worried me by asking that we now need to ask ourselves how much we need to curb freedom in order to protect it, adding that the bigger the threat, the greater the precautions you need to take.

He brought it back a little by saying that you can’t protect everyone from everything, but there are things you can do to minimise the risk. Then came the killer punch: he said that we may have to consider things that would be unacceptable at other times in order to deal with the extremists.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 104 Comments
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