On Sunday 11 January, while the big unity rally was happening in Paris, Speakers’ Corner in London saw Jay Smith, veteran debater with Muslims, take up the issue of the recent terrorism in France.
Bearing in mind the violence against cartoonists such as Georges Wolinski and others at Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris earlier in the week, and because of the enormous outcry by millions around the world, Jay Smith decided to show six of the most controversial covers used to mock Muhammad and compare them to others which have been used to mock Jesus Christ. He then sought reactions from Muslims concerning whether these caricatures, which are offensive, should be censored, or whether the cartoonists should be killed.
Smith said: ‘Speakers’ Corner, the bastion world wide for the “freedom of speech”, is the one place where we should have the right to show these offensive cartoons and then talk about them’.
