Via HuffPostUK on Twitter –

HuffPost UK ‏@HuffPostUK
BREAKING NEWS: Officially the largest demo in French history http://huff.to/1C4dGeR #ParisMarch #JeSuisCharlie

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Via Natasha Fatah on Twitter –

Natasha Fatah ‏@NatashaFatah
The largest of rally in the history of France. #JeSuisCharlie #CharlieHebdo #ParisMarch

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Via Twitter –

Nadine ‏@sooojune 37 minutes ago
“They wanted to bring France to its knees. They brought Europe to its feet.” #JeSuisCharlie

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Reporters Without Borders has a different take on the question of unity.

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the participation of many foreign leaders in today’s march in Paris in homage to the victims of last week’s terror attacks and in defence of the French republic’s values, but is outraged by the presence of officials from countries that restrict freedom of information.

On what grounds are representatives of regimes that are predators of press freedom coming to Paris to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo, a publication that has always defended the most radical concept of freedom of expression?

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted such as Egypt

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The Beeb also has a live report on the Paris march, so we can see commentary and news as it rolls in.

17:49

Peter Miller emails: It feels as if all of Paris is in the streets. We are still 1km away from Place de la Republique but the street is full of people. It is important the whole of society unites together now in solidarity for the freedom of speech and against hatred that wants to divide us.

I think that uniting bit is what the murderers don’t want.

Remember: they aren’t particularly bright. They have some cunning, but they’re not sharp. They didn’t plan for unity.

18:20

German ministers have accused the anti-immigration movement Pegida of exploiting

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The BBC reports on the massive Paris march today.

More than 40 world leaders joined the start of the march, linking arms in an act of solidarity.

“Paris is the capital of the world today,” French leader Francois Hollande said. “The whole country will rise up.”

The marchers hope to demonstrate unity after the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, police officers, and a kosher supermarket.

The rally, led by relatives of the victims of last week’s attacks, began at the Place de la Republique. It is thought that more than a million people are taking part.

More than a million people. That’s a huge march – I’ve never seen one that big.

World leaders, including British Prime Minister David

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A couple of cartoons via Lejla Kurić on Facebook –

via Facebook

Via Facebook… Read the rest

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Amnesty International says, not surprisingly, that the attack on Baga may be Boko Haram’s worst massacre so far.

“The attack on Baga and surrounding towns, looks as if it could be Boko Haram’s deadliest act in a catalogue of increasingly heinous attacks carried out by the group. If reports that the town was largely razed to the ground and that hundreds or even as many as two thousand civilians were killed are true, this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught against the civilian population,” said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.

“Disturbing” seems like a silly word there. Everything Boko Haram has done has been horrifying; to say this latest slaughter is disturbing … Read the rest

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Bill Donohue says we should all convert to Catholicism and then everything would be fine.

In an ideal world, Muslims who interpret the Koran to justify violence would convert to Catholicism, and artists who think they have an absolute right to insult people of faith would follow suit. If both did, we would have peace and civility.

Catholicism teaches that it is immoral to intentionally kill innocent persons, beginning with life in the womb. It is not a pacifistic religion—it believes in just wars—though it naturally inclines towards non-violence. It most certainly does not counsel violence as a right remedy to insolent behavior. Muslims who say it is morally justified to kill obscene artists, citing the Koran as their impetus,

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Originally a comment by artymorty on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary.

There’s so much confusion and disagreement among liberals about whether CH’s cartoons are punching up (lampooning religious authority) or punching down (needlessly mocking an already marginalized group of people).

Many Muslims are marginalized in France, but Islamists and conservative Muslim leaders are not powerless. Quite the opposite: they derive a great deal of power by claiming to speak for Muslims as a whole, and they’re actively working to enrich their power by undermining secular values in the West.

They accuse those outside the religion who dare to challenge their power of intolerance, of racism, of punching down, as if criticism of any part of the … Read the rest

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From World.Mic, some more cartoons about Charlie Hebdo

From the English-language newspaper Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed in Qatar:

From Makhlouf, a young cartoonist in Egypt:

… Read the rest

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From a comment by sff9 on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary:

It’s really not that complicated, CH’s staff are left-libertarians who enjoy over-the-top childish humor and practice hipster racism/sexism a lot. They fought racism by reproducing racist tropes with the intent of mocking them. All the sympathy that I had for Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and Wolinski, whose cartoons and comics I read or have read for years, does not change the fact that in a lot of ways CH’s spirit was akin to 4chan’s.

So while saying that the artists were racists is probably excessive, pointing out that a lot of CH’s cartoons are racist/sexist/islamophobic etc., or at least are problematic in this regard, and thus

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Via Twitter –

Frances Townsend ‏@FranTownsend 1 hour ago
“My brother was a Muslim…killed by people who pretend to be Muslims. they are terrorists, that’s it” #JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/tt0eOt3uZ7

That’s Malek Merabet, whose brother was Ahmed Merabet, who was shot in the head by one of the Kouatchi brothers as he lay wounded on the sidewalk.

… Read the rest

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The BBC reports that some 700,000 people have taken part in marches across France to support free speech and Charlie Hebdo.

During the marches, some protesters held banners that read “I am against racism”, “unity”, or “I am Charlie” – the latter a reference to Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine whose Paris offices were attacked by brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi on Wednesday.

See there? Against racism and for Charlie – that wouldn’t work if Charlie were itself racist.

There’s going to be a massive march in Paris tomorrow.

Those set to attend Sunday’s rally include UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei

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Facebook decided to ruin my mood by showing me posts by people I like ranting about the racism of Charlie Hebdo, as if it were self-evident and universally acknowledged. The idea is that Muslims are a marginalized group, therefore CH is racist.

O really? Then why did so many French Muslim groups immediately denounce the massacre?

The Grand Mosque of Paris, one of the largest in France, issued a statement on its website shortly after the attacks, saying its community was “shocked” and “horrified” by the violence.

We strongly condemn these kind of acts and we expect the authorities to take the most appropriate measures. Our community is stunned by what just happened. It’s a whole section of our democracy

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In Nice today – via Twitter –

RT ‏@RT_com 3h3 hours ago
Tens of thousands take to streets for silent #JeSuisCharlie march in Nice http://on.rt.com/k5ivya (Pic via @Orelip)

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I dislike Reason magazine most of the time, but there is some inevitable overlap on liberal and human rights values. One of those overlaps covers the disputes over Charlie Hebdo. Reason isn’t wrong on this one.

The massacre at the Paris offices of the venerable satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has been met with near-universal condemnation, but a growing chorus of self-appointed arbiters of good taste are going public, following up cursory denunciations of the murders with caveats that Charlie Hebdo is a “provocative,” “racist,” “Islamophobic,” “homophobic” publication who brought much of its trouble on itself.

Richard Seymour at Jacobin makes this point most succinctly in the final paragraph of his article…

Speaking of which, why are so many people … Read the rest

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Via AFP on Twitter:

AFP Photo Department ‏@AFPphoto 2 hours ago
More than 230,000 rally in France after Islamist attacks #AFP #JeSuisCharlie

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The IHEU has a passionate and moving post on Raif Badawi.

It is reported that officials have carried out the first 50 lashes of a 1000-lashes sentence against Saudi liberal, Raif Badawi. The charges related to his running of a Liberal Saudi website, focused on advocating greater religious freedom, which was deemed “insulting to Islam” and a threat to the state.

The order papers indicated that the lashings should be “severe”. Witnesses said that despite the severity of the beating today, Raif Badawi “did not flinch; he held the victory symbol and [a] guard had to hold his hand down“.

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) has consistently protested the prosecution and detention of Raif Badawi

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A terrific essay by Kenan Malik – je suis charlie? it’s a bit late.

The expressions of solidarity with those slain in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices are impressive. They are also too late. Had journalists and artists and political  activists taken a more robust view on free speech over the past 20 years then we may never have come to this.

Remember the fatwa on Rushdie? That’s when it started – people saying “wellllllllll maybe he really shouldn’t have…”

It’s partly fear, Kenan says, but not only that.

There has also developed over the past two decades a moral commitment to censorship, a belief that because we live in a plural society, so we must police

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