Contributing Authors

As a contemporary European, Charb should know that Islam is no “joking” matter. When it comes to Islam, the Liberal West should know that spirit of Voltaire is dead, so is the Freedom of Expression.

Voltaire (d. 1778), the Grand Old man of French Enlightenment, believed in "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." And his lifelong struggle to establish this right of individual human being led to the emergence of the Right of Freedom of Expression in the Liberal West. Today 233 years on, it seems to have all changed. Today they say: “I may disagree with what you have to say, and I have the right to claim your dead, if I do so.” Well, that’s what applies to issues relating to Islam in France, where the Muslim population is growing in leaps and bounds.

In the latest incident, Muslims firebombed the office of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical magazine, in Paris.

And the fault of the magazine? It published its latest issue with a frontpage title “Sharia Hebdo” – in reference to the recent win of Islamists in Tunisia election, following the so-called Arab Spring, as well as new Libya’s new leaders declaration last month of Sharia, or Islamic legislation, to be the main source of law in post-Qaddafi Libya.

The frontpage also displayed a cartoon of a man, wearing white robe, turban and beard, saying: “100 lashes if you don't die laughing.” The magazine also mentions Muhammad as the guest editor of the issue.

When Muslims started violence to protest the publication of Prophet Muhammad’s cartoon by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, Charlie Hebdo also reprinted Muhammad’s cartoons alongside other Western publications to express solidarity with Jyllands-Posten. In that incident, Muslims in France took the magazine to court on charges of "publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion."

Charb, director of the magazine, told APTN: "It was a joke where the topic was to imagine a world where Sharia would be applied."

"But since everyone tells us not to worry about Libya or Tunisia, we wanted to explain what would be a soft version of Sharia, a Sharia applied in a soft manner," added Charb.

As a contemporary European, Charb should know that Islam is no “joking” matter. When it comes to Islam, the Liberal West should know that spirit of Voltaire is dead, so is the Freedom of Expression.