Sanctimonious Solidarity

"It's unacceptable if representatives of countries that silence journalists try to take advantage of the current emotions to try to improve their international image, and then continue to repress journalists when they're back home."
"We should not let predators of the press spit on the graves of Charlie Hebdo and go back home and continue to arrest and jail journalists."
"Today was a day to not forget all the other Charlie Hebdo in the world, and there are a lot."
Delphine Halgand, spokesperson, Reporters Without Borders

L-R: Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, Mali's Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, France's Francois Hollande, Germany's Angela Merkel, the EU's Donald Tusk, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas march during a unity rally in Paris, Jan. 11, 2015.

It's inconceivable, such numbers, that over a million people in Paris marched in solidarity through its boulevards with dozens of world leaders walking before them, arm in arm. This rally for unity against Islamist onslaughts against journalists and cartoonists who have garnered a reputation for slighting the dignity of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, signify their support for freedom of speech, and in France in particular, the founding principles of Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.

In Islam there is no concept of liberty to lampoon a sanctified figure such as Mohammad, nor the religion which its followers insist is one of peace, but whose fundamentalist adherents rampage throughout the globe in mass slaughters. Fraternity with non-Muslims is forbidden in Islam. And as for equality, no other religions are recognized as equal to Islam; it is a dominating, conquest-ridden religion whose purpose is to create itself as a global monster of theocratic rule.

But there they were, world leaders of the ilk of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; the latter bitterly determined not to allow a Jewish state to reclaim its heritage over which Islam has sprawled itself in sole ownership. In Israel, journalists are free to satirize and criticize their government; in the Palestinian Authority journalists are oppressed and endangered.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Palestine 138 out of 180 on its scale of press freedom [Dylan Collins/Al Jazeera]

But also present were Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov; their unifying utterance: We stand together against barbarity, and we are all Charlie. In Russia, somehow journalists find themselves frequently dead. Of course others are not dealt with quite so harshly, merely imprisoned for long stretches until they understand reasonable compromise. Reasonable compromise is what the state media is all about; the reason they exist is to compromise.

Angela Merkel, David Cameron, and Denmark's Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and Mariano Rajoy of Spain marched arm in arm alongside Francois Hollande. The King of Jordan was there, the prime minister of Tunisia and the foreign ministers of both Russia and Egypt; both countries known for their suppression of free speech and the propensity for jailing journalists should they dare to criticize those in power.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to France made his appearance; last month the Western news media carried the story of a Saudi blogger sentenced to ten years' imprisonment and the first of his one thousand lashes for "insulting Islam", being administered; a hard lesson to learn that one must never endanger one's right to life, liberty and happiness by daring to insult Islam. Insulting Islam is what brought the retribution of death to Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists and journalists, right?

Egypt distinguishes itself through its 159 out of 180 countries' ranking for journalistic freedom in Reporters Without Borders' world press freedom index. Dozens of journalists are imprisoned there. Ms. Halgand reminded whoever would listen that the rally in Paris bringing out hordes of defenders of press freedom that their concerns should extend beyond the dreadful attacks at the Charlie Hebdo offices, to encompass other journalists whose dedication to freedom of the news have been the cause of their imprisonment or death.