Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Gérard Biard, the new editor of Paris humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, voiced his criticism of outlets — NBC among them — that declined to show the latest cover of the magazine, which featured yet another image of Mohammed.
Said Biard: “We cannot blame newspapers that already suffer much difficulty in getting published and distributed in totalitarian regimes that could cost them, at best jail, and at worst death. On the other hand, I am quite critical of newspapers which are published in democratic countries.”
“This cartoon is not just a little figure, a little Mohammed drawn by Luz [cartoonist Renald Luzier]. It’s a symbol. It’s the symbol of freedom of speech, of freedom of religion, of democracy, and secularism. It is this symbol that these newspapers refuse to publish. This is what they must understand: when they refuse to publish this cartoon, when they blur it out, when they decline to publish it, they blur out democracy, secularism, freedom of religion, and they insult the citizenship.”
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