Thousands of people wave national flags and hold placards that read "I am Charlie" at the Place de la Nation in Paris Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015.
Photo Credit: Burhan Ozbilici/AP

Will ‘Je suis Charlie’ result in more state power, less free speech?

A news analysis by Neil Macdonald, the Senior Washington Correspondent of Canada’s national public broadcaster CBC, suggests that despite all the public outcry over the killings of staff at Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris, many countries are not “terribly enthusiastic about free speech”.

In his analysis posted Tuesday (January 13) Macdonald raises the situations in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and continues “even Western governments are never terribly enthusiastic about free speech, or at least speech they find inconvenient.”

He remarks that two years ago, President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, criticized Charlie Hebdo “for publishing the cartoons that eventually drew the killers to its offices.”

Macdonald also notes that Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in his official statement of outrage at the Charlie Hebdo attack, “made no reference to free speech at all, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Canada, unlike the U.S., offers no guarantee of absolute free speech in its constitution.”

And he suggests “an English-language version of Charlie Hebdo wouldn’t last even a few days in Canada before concerned Muslim or Christian or Jewish citizens would be demanding charges be laid under Canada’s hate-speech laws, or dragging the magazine before one of our provincial human rights commissions that specialize in rooting out offensive expression.”

Macdonald suggests that the “war on terror” is very much back on: “Washington is convening an international summit to discuss new measures. Canada is preparing new legislation to expand the powers of its security agencies.”

“Clearly, the ultimate answer to the Charlie Hebdo massacre will not be freer speech. It will be a mostly secret intensification of police power, with attendant shrinkage of individual freedoms.

“And we will all be told not to worry: If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.”

More information:
CBC News/Neil Macdonald – Analysis: More state power, not free speech, the likeliest we-are-Charlie result – here

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