Press review: Charlie Hebdo attacks

The Kuwashī brothers’ attack on Charlie Hebdo has generated a lot of debate in Arabic media and newspapers. Not surprisingly, the attack was strongly condemned but for different reasons.‘Abd al-Halīm Qandīl of Al-Quds (UK) argued that neither the Kuwashī brothers’ attack nor Charlie’s cartoons is acceptable. Qandīl argued that the Kuwashīs’ attack and similar attacks help reinforce Islamophobia rather than challenge it. Qandīl concluded that peaceful protest is the only way to confront Charlie’s “unacceptable behavior". 

Liberal-leaning Khalid Ba-‘Omar  and Badīs Lounīs of Al-Arabī (UK) strongly condemned the attack. Ba-̔Omar used the words “coward, terrorist and backward” to describe the attack, and even went further to describe it as “a dark day in the history of France”.  He blamed mainstream French media for relating Islam to terrorism and argued that the Kuwashīs are French and that this is a French problem, not a religious one. Furthermore, he noted that millions of Muslims are French citizens who are “building France everyday”. Badīs begins her article by stressing that freedom of expression is a right that should not be debated. However, she questions Charlie’s double standards, as it fired its co-founder Sin after drawing Sarkozy’s son in a Jewish suit.  She argued that “France should rethink its double standards” when it comes to freedom of speech in order to avoid what she calls the “cycle of silence” and in order to avoid “a France where voices that condemn Charlie are called “pro-terrorist.”