January 8, 2015 — Paris, France
AJC criticized the decision by key media outlets in Great Britain and the United States—such as the London Daily Telegraph, the New York Times, CNN, and NBC—to omit or blur the Charlie Hebdo cartoon images that, according to confirmed reports, motivated the reprehensible attack on the paper’s offices that killed twelve people.
“Through this act of self-censorship, these news organizations are depriving the public of its right to know exactly what Charlie Hebdo had done to arouse the ire of the jihadists,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Keeping this information from the public not only betrays the canons of free journalism, but also furthers the goal of the killers and their sympathizers: to create an atmosphere of fear where freedom of expression is limited and make Islam, alone among all other world religions and secular ideologies, immune from public criticism.”
