JE SUIS HYPOCRITES - Authoritarian, Anti-Free Speech Politicians Pose For Staged Photo Op in Paris

By Michael Krieger: As I was wrapping up my travels in Asia, an extremely sad event unfolded in Paris during which 12 people were murdered at the office of satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Just four days later, another sad and pathetic event occurred. A swarm of politicians, many of whom are professional authoritarians, shamelessly descended onto the streets of Paris to “join millions of protesters” in a rally for free speech and solidarity with the victims of the barbaric attack.
As is typically the case, mainstream media stories were filled with powerful images of these political hacks marching arm in arm; faces austere, defiantly standing their ground on behalf of freedom and liberty the world over. You have doubtlessly seen many variations of the following:

Such images were commingled with photos of the real march, which was estimated to include an incredible 3.7 million people.

Such images can bring a tear to the eye of even the most hardened cynic. Politicians and citizens united for a noble cause! There’s just one minor problem. As the Huffington Post and Independent both noted, this is what the politicians’ march actually looked like:

While this pathetic and shameless photo op is embarrassing enough, what’s far more concerning and downright hypocritical is the fact that many of the participants are active authoritarians in their home countries. In fact, several Charlie Hebdo employees noticed and commented on the contradiction. For example, TruthDig reported the following:

Le Monde reported on the Charlie Hebdo team at the Paris rally on Sunday, the largest demonstrations in France since the end of World War II.  They were emotionally exhausted, having lived through a nightmarish week that saw 10 of their colleagues murdered in cold blood.  (One of the staffers killed was a Muslim copy-editor known at the offices for the breadth of his learning). 
And, fatigued as they are, they had soon to get back to work on the special edition of their weekly, which will be printed in a million copies rather than the 60,000 usual run.
They said their biggest regret was that they couldn’t have paraded caricatures from the past pages of Charlie Hebdo of the various heads of state who joined the rally– Benyamin Netanyahu, King Abdallah II of Jordan, of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, of Russian Foreign Minister Sergueï Lavrov, of Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and of all the authoritarian heads of state they had lampooned over the years.  (Many of the world leaders in the rally would have at the least jailed the Charlie Hebdo staff if they had been operating in those countries).

The only part of that sad scene to be celebrated is the fact that a pigeon went ahead and took a shit on French President François Hollande as he embraced Patrick Pelloux, a doctor and columnist at Charlie Hebdo. RawStory reports:

While cameras focused on the moment that the president of the republic, François Hollande, embraced Patrick Pelloux, the doctor and columnist at Charlie Hebdo who was one of the first to the scene after the attack, they also captured some unexpected footage.
As Hollande bends to take Pelloux in his arms, a bird deficates on the shoulder part of the president’s right sleeve - causing staff from the satirical magazine to try and hide their uncontrollable laughter.

Now that’s a story.

While the complete hypocrisy of these politicians marching was noted by many, including Reporters without Borders, the best work was done by Londoner, Daniel Wickham. He went ahead and tweeted a series detailing some of the human rights abusers present. His powerful stream from yesterday is shown below:

Daniel Wickham @DanielWickham93

So here are some of the staunch defenders of the free press attending the solidarity rally in Paris today...

1) King Abdullah of Jordan, which last year sentenced a Palestinian journalist to 15 years in prison with hard labour http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Jordanian-Palestinian-who-writes-for-Post-sentenced-in-Jordan-to-life-with-hard-labor-341596 …

2) Prime Minister of Davutoglu of Turkey, which imprisons more journalists than any other country in the world http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/dec/18/journalist-safety-turkey … 
3) Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, whose forced killed 7 journalists in Gaza last yr (second highest after Syria) http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-killed.html?annee=2014 … 
4) Foreign Minister Shoukry of Egypt, which as well as AJ staff has detained journalist Shawkan for around 500 days http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2014/12/20/photojournalist-shawkan-describes-endless-nightmare-behind-bars/ … 
5) Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia, which last year jailed a journalist for "insulting a government servant" http://en.rsf.org/russie-journalist-arrested-after-17-09-2014,46974.html … 
6) Foreign Minister Lamamra of Algeria, which has detained journalist Abdessami Abdelhai for 15 months without charge http://en.rsf.org/algerie-journalist-held-without-trial-in-17-11-2014,47235.html … 
7) The Foreign Minister of the UAE, which in 2013 held a journo incommunicado for a month on suspicion of MB links https://cpj.org/2013/08/uae-authorities-release-egyptian-journalist-after.php … 
8) Prime Minister Jomaa of Tunisia, which recently jailed blogger Yassine Ayan for 3 years for "defaming the army" http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/tunisia-blogger-jailed-military-court-should-be-released-2015-01-06 … 
9) The PMs of Georgia and Bulgaria, both of whom have a record of attacking & beating journos http://en.rsf.org/bulgarie-police-attack-journalists-covering-26-07-2013,44980.html … http://en.rsf.org/georgie-at-least-a-dozen-journalists-27-05-2011,40365.html … 
10) The Attorney General of the US, where police in Ferguson have recently detained and assaulted WashPost reporters http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/08/13/washington-post-reporter-arrested-in-ferguson/ … 
11) Prime Minister Samaras of Greece, where riot police beat & injured two journalists at a protest in June last year http://en.rsf.org/greece-riot-police-injure-woman-13-06-2014,46435.html … 
12) Sec-Gen of NATO, who are yet to be held to account for deliberately bombing and killing 16 Serbian journos in '99 http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/no-justice-victims-nato-bombings-20090423 … 
13) President Keita of Mali, where journalists are expelled for covering human rights abuses https://cpj.org/2013/05/malian-army-expels-french-journalist-from-gao.php … 
14) The Foreign Minister of Bahrain, 2nd biggest jailer of journos in the world per capita (they also torture them) http://cpj.org/2014/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2013-bahrain.php … 
15) Sheikh Mohamed Ben Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar, which jailed a man for 15 ys for writing the Jasmine poem http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/10/qatar-court-upholds-sentence-against-poet-20131021123723850815.html … 
16) Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who had several journalists jailed for insulting him in 2013 http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Palestinian-journalist-jailed-for-insulting-Abbas-308014 … 
17) Prime Minister Cerar of Slovenia, which sentenced a blogger to six months in prison for "defamation" in 2013 http://en.rsf.org/slovenia-blogger-gets-six-months-in-jail-16-05-2013,44621.html … 
18) Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland, where "blasphemy" is considered a criminal offense http://en.rsf.org/ireland-making-blasphemy-an-offence-takes-04-01-2010,35672.html … 
19) Prime Minister Kopacz of Poland, which raided a magazine to seize recordings embarrassing for the ruling party http://en.rsf.org/poland-violating-confidentiality-of-20-06-2014,46487.html … 
20) PM Cameron of the UK, where authorities destroyed documents obtained by The Guardian and threatened prosecution http://en.rsf.org/uk-government-s-culpable-20-08-2013,45073.html … 
21) Saudi ambassador to France. The Saudis publicly flogged blogger @raif_badawi for "insulting Islam" on Friday http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/09/saudi-blogger-first-lashes-raif-badawi … 

@LibertyBlitz

Today, a small group of radical authoritarians who hate free speech, liberty and their citizenry marched in Paris:

Brilliant work sir. I added my own two cents on the affair last evening:


In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

Source

______


FreeDumb

Deek Jackson