Nick Cohen in the Spectator quotes the (paywalled) Financial Times on Charlie Hebdo:
Charlie Hebdo is a bastion of the French tradition of hard-hitting satire. It has a long record of mocking, baiting and needling Muslims.
Two years ago the magazine published a 65-page strip cartoon book portraying the Prophet’s life. And this week it gave special coverage to Soumission (“Submission”), a new novel by Michel Houellebecq, the idiosyncratic author, which depicts France in the grip of an Islamic regime led by a Muslim president.
This is not in the slightest to condone the murderers, who must be caught and punished, or to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion. It is merely to say that some common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, and Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims.
This is not to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion, it’s merely to say that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion. Or, to put it another way, it’s not to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion, it’s merely to say that no one should actually use that freedom of expression. You can have it, if you insist, but you can’t avail yourself of it.
Nick’s comment is acidic:
Does the Financial Times have subeditors? Did no one spot that, having begun by saying that it does not want to condone murder, the Financial Times moved in two sentences to saying that Charlie Hebdo’s satirists have provoked their own deaths. Apparently, they ‘purport’ to believe in freedom of speech – the hypocrites. If only they had had the ‘common sense’ not to ‘provoke’ clerical fascism, then clerical fascists would not have come for them.
Surely that’s enough “freedom” for anyone.