Je suis CHARLIE 8

Je suis Charlie, French for I am Charlie is a slogan used by many supporters of freedom of speech and expression as a result of the January 7th massacre.  On January 7th twelve people were killed at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo located in Paris, France.  On the morning of the attack, two masked gunman equipped with assault rifles charged the building, killing 11 and wounding 11 more.  The terrorists are identified as belonging to Al-Qaeda and shouted Allahu Akbar (Arabic for "God is [the] greatest") as they raided the building.  I could not find the actual cartoon that sparked the attack, but I did find others that could be offensive to Islamic people such as these.

 

The Je suis Charlie slogan itself was used to rally people and spread awareness on twitter, then spread to various forms of social media.  The twitter hashtags #jesuischarlie and #iamcharlie spread across the internet and the slogan has been made into posters, signs, and put on almost anything. Within two days of the attack, the slogan had become one of the most popular news hashtags in Twitter history.   The slogan is intended to evoke solidarity with the victims, as other similar phrases have done.  While many people support the I am Charlie movement, others criticize people for instigating and playing with fire.  In my opinion, je suis Charlie is completely justified in fighting the war against terror and protecting freedom of expression and speech.  We cant let terrorists censor what we want to express or publish, much like we cant let other countries bully us into not producing movies.  They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and I say lets show these terrorists how the pen is mightier than fear and oppression, and cannot be censored or stamped on.