Charlie Hebdo killings must not lead to self-censorship, Tony Abbott urges | World news | The GuardianCharlie Hebdo killings must not lead to self-censorship, Tony Abbott urges | World news | The Guardian










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Charlie Hebdo attack



Charlie Hebdo killings must not lead to self-censorship, Tony Abbott urges









Australian PM stands up for free speech, saying: ‘We should not stop being ourselves because of this kind of attack’
























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Daniel Hurst, political correspondent






@danielhurstbne





Thursday 8 January 2015 19.59 EST







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Tony Abbott has urged Australian media not to resort to self-censorship after the deadly attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Asked how far the media should go in satirising religions, the prime minister noted that Catholicism had come in for “a particular dose of scorn” in the past.
Twelve people died on Wednesday when gunmen stormed the Paris office of the magazine known for ridiculing religions, including Islam. The gunmen were heard to say they were avenging the prophet Muhammad.
The attack prompted calls from free-speech advocates for newspapers around the world to publish the controversial depictions of the prophet in an act of solidarity with the staff of Charlie Hebdo.
The prime minister was asked during a TV interview on Friday how far the nation’s media outlets should go when satirising religions or minority groups.
“Australian media organisations don’t normally hold back when, for argument’s sake, they are criticising Christianity,” Abbott told Nine’s Today program. “Catholicism comes in for a particular dose of scorn.”
Abbott said it was important that “we don’t engage in self-censorship as a result of this kind of attack”.
“Second, and even more important, we should not stop being ourselves because of this kind of attack,” he said.
“If we do engage in self-censorship, if we do change the way we live and the way we think, that gives terrorists a victory. The last thing we should do is give these evil fanatics any kind of victory.”
Editors and news directors around the world have been wrestling with how to handle the images, attempting to balance their desire to make a stand for free speech against other considerations such as not causing offence to Muslims and not risking the safety of staff.
Reporters Without Borders was among several groups that called for media editors to publish the cartoons, saying “freedom of information cannot shrink in the face of barbarity and yield to blackmail”. 
The editor of the UK’s Independent newspaper, Amol Rajan, said “every instinct” told him to publish the cartoons, but he also felt a responsibility to his staff. He felt “very uncomfortable” with self-censorship but said it would have been too much of a risk “to unilaterally decide in Britain to be the only newspaper that went ahead and published” the images.
The German newspaper BZ ran a front page on Thursday containing a compilation of 43 Charlie Hebdo covers from recent years. The editor of BZ, Peter Huth, said the paper wanted to honour the bravery of the Charlie Hebdo staff.
Abbott said the “unspeakable atrocity” in the French capital was “an attack on civilisation; it is an attack on one of our most precious values, namely our commitment to free speech which is at the very heart of western civilisation and is at the heart of all progress”.
He said the terrorist attack in Paris was “relatively sophisticated”, whereas recent attacks in Australia, including the deadly siege in Martin Place in Sydney, were “relatively unsophisticated”.



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