Quotes & Sayings About Charlie Hebdo

Our values were under attacks, in Paris
Tell them:
We stand UNITED
We'll defend our values
We'll NOT be DIVIDED — Widad Akreyi

THE TERRORISTS hoped their deadly attack would spell the end of Charlie Hebdo magazine, but the publication's staff is showing no sign of surrender. — Anonymous

After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I take Charb's point, but at some point has Charlie Hebdo been trying to have it both ways because some of what they do is not funny. — Scott Simon

Some felt as if 'Charlie Hebdo' was obsessed with its 'Screw Allah' stance. It's a sort of provocation that caused a lot of debates. — Patrick Chappatte

The free world cannot afford to accept any form of extremism, whether it is fascism, racism or religious extremism. — Widad Akreyi

Everyone understood [Charlie Hebdo], as people had understood for hundreds of years, knowing that Rabelaisian tradition of French satire, they knew how to read it. And they understood the kind of release from piety that it represented every week. — Scott Simon

51% of the French people - who are not very religious - were thinking that what "Charlie Hebdo" did was unwise. They aren't asking for a law to prevent Charlie Hebdo from publishing caricatures, but they are calling on its editors to be a bit more sensible. — Tariq Ramadan

Charlie Hebdo mocked everyone. They mocked the left. They mocked the right. They mocked, above all, the extreme right, the extreme right of Le Pen's. If anything could identify their politics, they were kinds of anarchists. — Scott Simon

The people who start howling the minute Charlie Hebdo publishes a drawing of a self-styled Islamic terrorist toe a particular line. They suggest that by caricaturing an Islamic terrorist, the cartoonist is really symbolizing all Muslims. So long as the terrorist is identifiable as a Muslim, the cartoonist must be mocking all Islam. If you draw a jihadist doing what jihadists do, you are dragging the billions of faithful through the mud. If you draw Muhammad denouncing the extremists among his followers, you're insulting all Muslims. The terrorist must be stripped of any element that could identify him as a Muslim, while it is quite simply forbidden to represent Muhammad at all. If portraying an Islamist terrorist as grotesque is Islamophobic, that's the same as saying that all Muslims are terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. — Charb

I don't think any media has to feel obliged to show the cover of 'Charlie Hebdo.' — Patrick Chappatte

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."

[I Stand With Charlie Hebdo, as We All Must (Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2015)] — Salman Rushdie

Charlie Hebdo were the licensed anarchist clowns of the society. — Scott Simon

The truth is, 'Charlie Hebdo' is not a racist magazine. Rather, it is a campaigning anti-racist left-wing magazine. — Maajid Nawaz

To a coward, courage always looks like stupidity. — Bill Maher

I Will Follow Anyone
And Ask Everyone
To Stand Together
As One Civilisation
Against Terrorism — Widad Akreyi

Generalization is the biggest challenge that must be dealt with if we are to create spaces for constructive dialogue where muslims feel they are welcomed. This is equally true with regards to Westerners! Not all Westerners are against muslims, and not all terrorist attacks in the West are linked to Islamic jihadists. — Widad Akreyi

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire — Salman Rushdie

I will follow anyone ... and invite everyone ... too unite and defend the freedom of expression. — Widad Akreyi

There can only be one answer to this hideous act of jihad against the staff of Charlie Hebdo. It is the obligation of the Western media and Western leaders, religious and lay, to protect the most basic rights of freedom of expression, whether in satire on any other form. The West must not appease, it must not be silenced. We must send a united message to the terrorists: Your violence cannot destroy our soul. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Charlie Hebdo: Satire was the father of true political freedom, born in the 18th century; the scourge of bigots and tyrants. Sing its praises. — Simon Schama

People have been murdered over cartoons. End of moral analysis. — Sam Harris

What would a respectful political cartoon look like? — Salman Rushdie

Charlie Hebdo has been sued a good dozen times by the General Alliance against Racism and for Respect of French and Christian Identity (AGRIF), an organization of Catholic fundamentalists who long maintained close ties with the National Front. — Charb

What I do know is that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have been converted into the closest thing the West has to religious-like martyrs in the war against radical Islam, which means that anything short of pure reverence for them generates tribal rage and vilification. — Glenn Greenwald

Criminals kill journalists/hostages in France, devout Muslims pay the bill all over Europe. — Paulo Coelho

If the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris had nothing to do with Islam as President Francois Hollande suggested, why did he invite Muslim community leaders to meet him the day after the tragedy? — Amir Taheri

A good analogy [Charlie Hebdo] in lots of ways is "South Park" - the hugely popular American cartoon show - and the things that the "South Park" creators have created, like "The Book Of Mormon," the Broadway musical. If I were a devout Mormon, I would be offended by a lot of things that go on in "The Book Of Mormon," right? It mocks mercilessly the pretensions to truth of Mormonism and the pretensions to virtue of Mormon missionaries. — Adam Gopnik