Vigils held to commemorate the shootings at Charlie Hebdo

Je suis Charlie

In cities and towns all across Canada vigils were held last night to commemorate the shootings at the French magazine “Charlie Hebdo”, and as a show of solidarity with the right to freedom of expresson.

While some vigils were held indoors, many thousands of Canadians also turned out for outdoor vigils in spite of bitterly cold temperatures.

In Montreal for example temperatures with wind chill were equivalent to about -30 C

In the major west coast port city of Vancouver, British Columbia,  Lionel Traverse was among the crowd at a vigil there.

The former Paris resident now living in Abbotsford B.C, said satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo pushes the limits, but that’s what free speech is all about.

Quoted by the CBC he said, “This is a free society and people have the right to do that,” e said, “and if people are offended they don’t have to look at it, they can do something else. They can read another newspaper.”

“I feel people who believe in a free press should publish Charlie Hebdo. The CBC should publish Charlie Hebdo and Al Jazeera too because that’s the only answer we have to these fanatics.”

In Montreal, all the French-language newspapers agreed to publish the same Charlie cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in solidarity with the French weekly magazine and to demonstrate their defence of the concept of freedom of the press.

It showed a crying Mohammed with captions loosely translated as “Mohammed overwhelmed by extremists” with the balloon caption reading “It’s hard when your loved by cretins”

Charlie Hebdo, while often publishing crude images of Mohammed also targetted all other religions, their leaders and prophets,

Indeed the magazine targetted any and all other public figures or institutions in France, whether political or from the arts and culture scene

Several vigils were also held in the city, one of which was organized at City Hall by Mayor Denis Coderre.

He addressed the crowd from the steps beneath a large banner of the now worldwide slogan “Je suis Charlie”

CBC interview with famous Montreal political cartoonist Terry Mosher who draws under the name “Aislin”