#JeSuisCharlie: Worldwide marches in solidarity with France

About a hundred thousand people rallied worldwide in solidarity with France on Sunday, with marchers across Europe and the Middle East chanting “Je suis Charlie” and holding pens in the air. From Berlin to Washington and Jerusalem to Beirut, crowds waved French flags and sang France’s national anthem “La Marseillaise” following the Islamist attacks that killed 17 people, most at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Christians, Muslims and Jews alike took part in the rallies, held as nearly four million people took to the streets in unity marches across France. In Israel, where four French Jews killed in a Paris supermarket attack will be buried, more than 500 people gathered in Jerusalem in front of a screen reading in French “Jerusalem is Charlie.”

This is an attack on all of us - on the Jewish people, on freedom of media and expression,

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat

Dozens of Palestinians also held a rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah, waving Palestinian and French flags and holding up banners reading “Palestine stands with France against terrorism.” Hamas-run Gaza paid tribute to the victims during a candlelit vigil in the tiny coastal enclave. Across the Atlantic, about 25,000 people marched in a huge rally in Canada’s French-speaking city of Montreal, organizers said. In Europe, one of the biggest rallies was in Berlin, where 18,000 people marched wearing t-shirts saying “Checkpoint Charlie Hebdo” — a reference to the Cold War-era Checkpoint Charlie in the once-divided German city.

I know the Muslim community feels wounded and humiliated by these cartoons, but they were not taking aim at Islam but at fundamentalism.

Belgian cartoonist Philippe Geluck