AFP, London :
Britain’s newspapers rallied behind their French counterparts on Thursday following the horrific terror attack on magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead, urging them not to restrain their renowned spirit of provocation.
But they also called for a measured response, fearing the rise of Islamophobia and the far right.
Both the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph ran with the front page headline “The War on Freedom” along with a photograph of the attack showing two attackers pointing their guns at a policeman lying on the pavement.
In the same vein, The Times led with “Attack on Freedom” on its front page while the Guardian called it an “Assault on Democracy.”
The Guardian lept to the defence of the controversial magazine, which angered Muslims by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, saying there was something “distinctly French about the form of offensiveness that Charlie Hebdo revelled in.”
“Radicals, as the murdered journalists assuredly saw themselves, have always mocked Christian humbug, just as Charlie Hebdo did, and never seen any principled reason to show more deference to other faiths,” said its editorial.
Britain’s newspapers rallied behind their French counterparts on Thursday following the horrific terror attack on magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead, urging them not to restrain their renowned spirit of provocation.
But they also called for a measured response, fearing the rise of Islamophobia and the far right.
Both the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph ran with the front page headline “The War on Freedom” along with a photograph of the attack showing two attackers pointing their guns at a policeman lying on the pavement.
In the same vein, The Times led with “Attack on Freedom” on its front page while the Guardian called it an “Assault on Democracy.”
The Guardian lept to the defence of the controversial magazine, which angered Muslims by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, saying there was something “distinctly French about the form of offensiveness that Charlie Hebdo revelled in.”
“Radicals, as the murdered journalists assuredly saw themselves, have always mocked Christian humbug, just as Charlie Hebdo did, and never seen any principled reason to show more deference to other faiths,” said its editorial.
