The veteran City PR, Brian Basham, has made his own “Je suis Charlie” t-shirt and will be wearing it throughout today during his appointments.
It struck him that there should be a “Je suis Charlie” day in which as many people as possible across Britain should wear such t-shirts in order to proclaim their belief in free speech and show sympathy for the 12 people murdered in the attack on the Paris offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo.
And that strikes me as a good idea too. Similarly, I support the National Union of Journalists’ call for a minute’s silence at 11am.
The union’s general secretary issued a statement saying:
“Following yesterday’s shocking and sickening assassinations of journalists at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and attending police officers, the NUJ is calling on all members to observe the minute’s silence called by colleagues in France this morning at 11am our time (noon in France).
“The NUJ, together with journalists and their unions around the world, has condemned this attack as an attempt to gag press freedom and attack the entire profession. Please join us all in stopping work for one minute to pay our collective respects to colleagues who have paid the ultimate price in carrying out their work”.
English PEN has also condemned the attack in company with its PEN pals - PEN International, French PEN, PEN Quebec, PEN Lebanon, PEN Turkey and PEN American Center.
It said: “This is not the first time that journalists, editors, writers, cartoonists and translators have been targeted for expressing opinions that may offend, outrage or shock sections of society.
“But there has never been an assault on such a scale in Europe. There can be no justification for using violence to silence or intimidate those who speak out, no matter how offensive their views.
“In the face of such violence, it is incumbent on all governments and religious leaders to strengthen their commitment to press freedom and to safeguard freedom of expression as a fundamental human right”.
One English PEN member who has suffered from threats from Muslim fanatics in the past, Salman Rushdie, said: ‘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”.
