A Rally of Hypocritical World Leaders

Estimates put the march on Sunday in France at 3.7 million in show of solidarity for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Seventeen people died on that fateful day and invariably some of France’s freedoms died on that day too. The story that is not getting enough attention that is centered around that show of humanity with people marching in support is that there were 40 world leaders that are all guilty of what they allegedly came to fight against: freedom of the press.

Yes, in a bold showing of arrogance to the highest degree, we see all the world leaders lining up, hand-in-hand to show the whole world that they care about freedom, while committing their own acts of oppression against journalists in their home countries. Even France itself does not actually have freedom of speech like we do here in the U.S. In fact, the very magazine itself, Charlie Hebdo, fired one of their writers for making fun of Israel, in the exact same flavor that they produce everyday against Islam.

But, going back to these so-called world leaders of press freedom, you will find that blasphemy laws exist in most parts of the world. Netanyahu has already put his foot in his mouth with comments directed towards France’s Jewish community, basically telling them that they should leave their homes and come live in the holy land of Israel. His arrogance probably didn’t account for just how insensitive and insulting that is to those who actually love their homes and don’t view all Muslims as terrorists.

The rest of the world leaders who said their piece just by showing up for the photo-op march (yes, their march was merely a photo-op as it was not connected to the million who marched in Paris), are exceptionally heinous practices against freedom of speech that it is impossible to list them all at once. Just to pick a few of the biggest offenders: General Sisi of Egypt jailed journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, The Foreign Minister of Bahrain sits on the world’s second largest jailer of journalists, while also partaking in torture of said journalists. Then, finally, you have the number one offender Turkey, who was represented by the Prime Minister of Davutoglu, throwing the highest number of journalists into prison in the world.

These world leaders aren’t showing solidarity for those who lost their lives in France. They are making a mockery of the basic freedoms that should be afforded to everyone, regardless of class, race, creed, or political views.