Just a few short days elapsed between the march for Charlie Hebdo and the beginning of the crackdown.
On January 11, leaders from Europe and beyond took to the streets of Paris to show their support for freedom of speech and to announce defiantly that they would not be cowed. François Hollande, France’s beleaguered president, expressed his determination to fight for his country’s “principles and values, in particular freedom of expression.” Standing by his side, the British prime minister, David Cameron, affirmed his belief in a “free press, in freedom of expression, in the right of people to write and say what they believe.” Even Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, a man who has routinely imprisoned journalists for writing things of which he disapproved, got in on the act.
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