On the morning of 7th January 2015, a calculated act of terror unfolded at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical cartoon magazine. Armed with Kalashnikovs, two Islamists, enraged by the magazine’s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, stormed the building and carried out a massacre. Within moments, twelve lives were taken, including eight members of the editorial staff. 

The victims died because Charlie Hebdo dared to puncture the brittle pomposity of unyielding dogma, defending a principle central to Western values since the Enlightenment: no belief system, no matter how sacred, is immune from satire. Among the fallen was Stéphane Charbonnier, or “Charb,” Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief, who, lest we forget, had been living under police protection since 2011. That year, the magazine published an issue titled “Charia Hebdo”, featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. In response, the magazine’s offices were firebombed, and death threats poured in.

But Charb refused to yield. “What I’m about to say is maybe a little pompous,” he told Le Monde in 2012 while discussing the threats he’d faced, “but I’d rather die standing up than live on my knees.” This defiance wasn’t an act of provocation for its own sake, but a principled stand against those who would use violence to dictate the boundaries of public discourse. As Charlie Hebdo’s then editor-in-chief, Gérard Biard, put it during the same interview: “If we say to religion, ‘You are untouchable’, we’re f*****.”

The attack claimed the lives of Jean Cabut, Bernard Verlhac, Georges Wolinski, and Philippe Honoré — cartoonists and writers whose pens wielded humour as a weapon against all forms of hypocrisy and authoritarianism. Elsa Cayat, the magazine’s columnist and a fearless voice who challenged societal norms, and Mustapha Ourrad, the magazine’s copy editor and an Algerian immigrant who valued the freedom he found in France, were also among the victims. 

Police officers Franck Brinsolaro, assigned to protect Charb, and Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim, also paid with their lives – the latter’s death of course a powerful reminder that the Islamist attackers’ claims to speak for all Muslims are both hollow and offensive, and that no ideology, however violent or dogmatic, can claim a monopoly on the beliefs or values of a diverse and multifaceted faith.

In the wake of the attack, millions took to the streets under the banner “Je Suis Charlie”, a declaration of solidarity and a proclamation that freedom of speech is non-negotiable. Yet, as we mark the 10th anniversary of this attack, it is impossible to ignore how fleeting that solidarity has proven to be. Even at the time, there were murmurings that Charlie Hebdo had “gone too far”, as if the act of drawing a cartoon could ever justify cold-blooded murder. 

When PEN America decided to award Charlie Hebdo its Free Expression Courage Award, more than 200 well-known writers protested. The dean of a journalism school, writing in USA Today, implied that the magazine’s satires of Muhammad should fall outside the protections of the First Amendment. Even Garry Trudeau, the creator of Doonesbury, suggested that Charlie Hebdo had incited the murderous violence against it.

Five years later, in September 2020, as the trial of the suspected accomplices began, Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons of Muhammad. The editors saw this as a necessary act of defiance, asserting that the cartoons “belong to history, and history cannot be rewritten nor erased”. Yet again, however, many criticised the magazine for what they deemed to be another offensive attack on Muslims and their faith. Unsurprisingly, the Turkish foreign ministry swiftly condemned the cartoons, arguing that “it is not possible to justify this insult and disrespect toward Muslims by saying it is freedom of press, art or expression”. Rather more troubling was the fact that Imam Qari Asim, then the deputy chair of the UK government’s anti-Muslim hatred working group, wrote to The Independent to condemn the “disgraceful” and “deliberately offensive” cartoons. Muslims “respect freedom of speech” he said, “but not when it incites hatred”.

This equivocation betrays the values for which the victims of Charlie Hebdo died. Free speech is not a privilege to be granted or withdrawn based on whose feelings are hurt; it is a cornerstone of democracy, indispensable for questioning power, dogma and orthodoxy. 

It would be fundamentally wrong to frame the attack on Charlie Hebdo as some form of righteous retribution for an unforgivable social faux pas. It was about control — control of the public square, control of heretics, control of thought itself.

That is why, ten years on, the Free Speech Union stands in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, ensuring that the legacy of those who were murdered endures. This unthinkable atrocity was not merely an attack on a magazine. It was an attack on the principle that no idea, no belief, no religious figure is beyond satire. It was an attempt to impose, through violence, a prohibition on critique. To yield to such demands is to surrender the freedoms that underpin our societies.

As we do so, however, we should not blind ourselves to how much has already been lost. The freedom to criticise, to lampoon, to question sacred tenets has been increasingly curtailed, not just by fear of violent reprisal — the “jihadi’s veto” — but also via a broader societal tendency to avoid controversial subjects altogether. In the void created by fear, de facto blasphemy laws have crept into Western societies. They do not bear that name, but they have the same chilling effect. Writers, artists and thinkers censor themselves, avoiding subjects deemed too risky, too provocative, or too likely to incite a mob. This stifles not just speech but the contestation of ideas essential to progress, representing a capitulation to those who seek to control discourse through intimidation.

What the victims of Charlie Hebdo remind us is that without courage, there is only capitulation

Quite apart from de facto blasphemy laws, we are witnessing the return of de jure blasphemy laws, cloaked in the language of anti-discrimination. Scotland’s Hate Crime Act exemplifies this trend by criminalising speech deemed to “stir up hatred”, even without intent. While its aim is to protect marginalised groups, its vague and overly broad provisions risk punishing legitimate criticism, robust debate — even artistic expression.

What the victims of Charlie Hebdo remind us is that without courage, there is only capitulation; that to silence oneself in fear is to allow barbarism to erode the principles of freedom, pluralism and open debate that underpin Western civilisation. Let us honour the Charlie Hebdo twelve not only for how they died but for what they lived — and so bravely stood — for.