Je Suis Charlie.

   Yesterday, the Paris office of French satirical newspaper was attacked by masked gunmen. Twelve people were killed, two police officers and some of the best cartoonists in France included. According to the media and various sources, the attack was a terrorist attack from Islamic extremists who were angered at the newspaper's constant depictions of their prophet. The terrifying thing is that two of the men have not yet been found.

  The attacks launched a wide range of comments and reactions worldwide and on the internet. Many world leaders, including Obama and Cameron, have already weighed in, condemning the horrific actions of the gunmen, cartoonists around the world have produced many heartbreaking images to show their solidarity for their fallen peers and the online debates are plentiful.

copyright Jean Jullien 2015

  Some people believe that the actions of the gunmen was an attack against the fundamental human right that is freedom of speech and expression. Others believe that the deaths of the twelve were horrific but it is important to remember that a lot of the things that were published in Charlie Hebdo were often homophobic, misogynistic and anti-religion (especially Islam and the Catholic Church), spreading negative stereotypes of the religion.

  When I first heard the news, I was incredibly shaken. Paris is one of my favourite cities in the world and I'm going to be moving there in October for a year. I'm even hoping to do a bit of journalistic work whilst out there. I spent most of yesterday watching the news and reading articles on what was unfolding and after a lot of thought, I decided to share 'Je Suis Charlie' on Twitter and Instagram. Here's why I did so.

  I am a huge believer in freedom of expression. As someone with a diary/journal, a blog, who writes reviews and hopes to even be a critic one day, I believe that it is very important to be given the freedom to share your own opinion and critique things. However, due to my own personal beliefs, I also believe that there is a fine line between freedom of expression and being rude/ offensive. You can have an opinion on something, but you have to be considerate about the views and opinions of others.

 So, when I shared 'Je Suis Charlie', I was not condoning or agreeing with everything that Charlie Hebdo has ever published. I shared it because even though people might hold opinions that others consider offensive, it is NOT right to kill people for their opinions. This will NEVER be okay. I shared it in solidarity with the victims, their families and the whole of France. I believe that we are all Charlie because we all have opinions and what happened to those poor cartoonists could happen to anyone, myself included, if we start policing the opinions of people, and the world will be a very awful place indeed if we descend to that.

  It really pains me that hateful people and organisations such as Nigel Farage and Britain First are using this awful incident to spread their own negative agendas that support racism and are against multiculturalism and integration. It is NOT right to condemn a whole community for the evil actions of a few culprits and this idea can be applied to many things. So, enough of the hate. La haine attire la haine (hate attracts hate).

  Je suis Charlie et je suis totalement pour la liberté d'expression. May the victims rest in peace.