Executive producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr:

Thursday, January 08, 2015

Subject: AJ coverage of events in Paris
Dear Editorial colleagues,
Please accept this note in the spirit it is intended to make our coverage the best that it can be
. We are Al Jazeera!!!!
My suggestion is that we question and raise the following points in our coverage
studio/anchors/guests/correspondents:

This was a targeted attack, not a broad attack on the french population a la Twin towers
or 7/7 style. So who was this attack against? The whole of France/EU society? Or
specifically this magazine. The difference lies in how this is reported not in how terrible
the act is obviously murder is murder either way but poses a narrower question of
the why? attack on french society and values? Only if you consider CHs racist
caricatures to be the best of European intellectual production (total whitewash on that
at the moment)

Was this really an attack on Free speech? Who is attacking free speech here exactly?
Does an attack by 2-3 guys on a controversial magazine equate to a civilizational attack
on European values..? Really?

I am Charlie as an alienating slogan with us or against us type of statement one

can be anti-CHs racism and ALSO against murdering people(!) (obvious I know but
worth stating)

Also worth stating that we still dont know much about the motivations of the attackers
outside of the few words overheard on the video. Yes, clearly it was a punishment for
the cartoons, but it didnt take them 8/9 years to prep this attack (2006 was Danish/CH
publication) this is perhaps a response to something more immediateFrench action
against ISIL? Mali? Libya? CH just the target ie focus of the attack..?

Danger in making this a free speech aka European Values under attack binary is that it
once again constructs European identity in opposition to Islam (sacred depictions) and

cements the notion of a European identity under threat from an Islamic retrograde
culture of which the attackers are merely the violent tip of the iceberg (see the seeping
of Far Right discourse into french normalcy with Houellebecques novel for example)

The key is to look at the biographies of these guys contrary to conventional wisdom,
they were radicalised by images of Abu Ghraib not by images of the Prophet
Mohammed

You dont actually stick it to the terrorists by insulting the majority of Muslims by
reproducing more cartoons you actually entrench the very animosity and divisions
these guys seek to sow.

This is a clash of extremist fringes

I suggest a re-read of the Time magazine article back from 2011 and I have selected the most
poignant/important excerpt.
http://world.time.com/2011/11/02/firebombed-french-paper-a-victim-of-islamistsor-its-ownobnoxious-islamophobia/?iid=gs-articlemostpop1http://world.time.com/2011/11/02/firebombed-french-paper-a-victim-ofislamistsor-its-own-obnoxious-islamophobia/?iid=gs-article-mostpop1

Its unclear what the objectives of the caricatures were other than to offend Muslims
and provoke hysteria among extremists.

Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to
be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile. Baiting extremists isnt bravely
defiant when your manner of doing so is more significant in offending millions of moderate
people as well. And within a climate where violent responsehowever illegitimateis a real
risk, taking a goading stand on a principle virtually no one contests is worse than pointless: its
pointlessly all about you.
Kind regards

Salah-Aldeen Khadr
Executive Producer
Al Jazeera English
U.S.-based correspondent Tom Ackerman:
Friday, January 9, 2015
Subject: RE: AJ coverage of events in Paris
If a large enough group of someone is willing to kill you for saying something, then its
something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto
power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isnt really a liberal civilization
any more.liberalism doesnt depend on everyone offending everyone else all the time, and its
okay to prefer a society where offense for its own sake is limited rather than pervasive. But
when offenses are policed by murder, thats when we need more of them, not less, because the
murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.
-Ross Douthat in the NY Times
Doha-based correspondent Mohamed Vall Salem:
Friday, January 9, 2015
Subject: RE: AJ coverage of events in Paris
large enough group?

Friday, January 9, 2015

Subject: RE: AJ coverage of events in Paris
Rejoinder,

I guess if you insult 1.5 billion people chances are one or two of them will kill you they dont
represent the 1.5 who swallowed the insult in silence and patience in the name of free speech.
And I guess if you encourage people to go on insulting 1.5 billion people about their most
sacred icons then you just want more killings because as I said in 1.5 billion there will remain
some fools who dont abide by the laws or know about free speech. Simply put, its difficult to
control and tame and brake down or otherwise punish or educate all those 1.5 billion people.
Isnt it simply wiser to respect peoples sacred values and sacred icons? Respect breeds respect,
insult can degenerate into something worse than just insult, depending who whos at the the
receiving end.
Last, if you no longer have anything that you hold sacred (the death of religion and the death of
God etc), there 1.5 billion people who still have dont ignore their values in the name of
yours, because values are a cultural construct, they vary from age to age and from culture to
culture
Last, last: what Charlie Hebdo did was not free speech it was an abuse of free speech in my
opinion, go back to the cartoons and have a look at them! It snot about what the drawing said,
it was about how they said it.
I condemn those heinous killings, but IM NOT CHARLIE
Mohamed Vall
Senior Paris correspondent Jacky Rowland:
Friday, January 9, 2015
Subject: RE: AJ coverage of events in Paris
Dear all
We are Aljazeera. So, a polite reminder:

#journalismisnotacrime
Kind regards
Jacky

Jacky Rowland
Senior Correspondent, Paris
Aljazeera English
Roving reporter Omar Al Saleh:
Friday, January 9, 2015
Subject: RE: AJ coverage of events in Paris
First i condemn the brutal killing. But I AM NOT CHARLIE.
JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME
INSULTISM IS NOT JOURNALISM
AND NOT DOING JOURNALISM PROPERLY IS CRIME

OMAR AL SALEH | ROVING REPORTER

ALJAZEERA ENGLISH CHANNEL
NEWS DEPT