Daily Times

There were two shootings in tandem in Copenhagen on a synagogue and a café where a seminar on freedom of speech was being held. Fortunately, there were no civilian casualties because security forces were able to neutralize the attackers in time. The seminar was organised by Lars Vilks, the cartoonist responsible for the first depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in 2007. This is not the first attempt made on Vilks’ life, yet it is also pertinent that these shootings followed in the wake of the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices on January 7, 2015. It is not clear whether the suspects had any links to Islamist militant groups but one can certainly infer that they were influenced by the propaganda of these organizations. A security officer guarding the synagogue, at which a bar mitzvah celebration was being held, was killed and two others were injured. There are many similar patterns between these attacks and the ones in Paris last month, including the fact that cartoonists who made caricatures of the Prophet (PBUH) were attacked along with a Jewish establishment. After the Copenhagen incident Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated: “We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe.” In the case of Charlie Hebdo the accompanying attack was on a Kosher grocery store, indicating that fundamentalist groups consider Judaiism a threat to Islam akin to that of blasphemy.

Certain extremist groups that are not representative of the religions, ethnicities and peoples that they claim to be fighting for have turned the world into a battlefield. These attacks and the reactions that they have engendered show that parties on both side of these wars are becoming more and more extreme and intransigent in their positions. In the light of the growing radicalization of groups of people under the banners of religion and politics, it is a vital responsibility of the international community, particularly artists and members of the media, to help promote peace and tolerance. Comments and opinions that can provoke terror from fundamentalist groups, regardless of whether they emanate from good intentions and rational thought, should be expressed with discretion. The principle of free speech holds that it is an individual’s right to choose to express or not express what they believe and feel. Similarly, it is an individual’s obligation to exercise that right with a sense of responsibility for the possible consequences, whether direct or indirect. No other individual, state or organisation has the right to try and silence him or her. The threat of terrorism is more dangerous than the threat of censorship because the need to protect the sanctity of human life is far more important than the right of freedom of expression. *