Leaked emails revealed Friday that Al Jazeera correspondents are in disagreement over whether French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is partly responsible for a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 12 people.
The emails, which were first obtained by National Review Online and can be seen in their entirety here, show that a message from Al Jazeera English editor and executive producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr prompted the infighting among the agency’s employees.
In reference to covering Wednesday’s attacks on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris, Khadr suggested Al Jazeera correspondents ask if it was “really an attack on ‘free speech,’” and whether “I am Charlie” is an “alienating slogan.”
He further suggested that correspondents avoid framing the massacre as one where “‘European Values’ [are] under attack” from “extremist fringes.”
It is believed that Islamic terrorists carried out Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo in response to the magazine’s mocking of Islam and Muhammad.
“Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile,” the London-based Khadr wrote. “Baiting extremists isn’t bravely defiant when your manner of doing so is more significant in offending millions of moderate people as well. And within a climate where violent response — however illegitimate — is a real risk, taking a goading stand on a principle virtually no one contests is worse than pointless: it’s pointlessly all about you.”
His email set off a chain reaction, pitting correspondents against one another as they chose sides in the debate over whether the French magazine had, in fact, provoked the slaughter.
Al Jazeera’s Tom Ackerman, who is based in the U.S., responded with an email quoting the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, who argued that Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammad cartoons must be republished because “the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.”
This rift continued to grow.
“I guess if you insult 1.5 billion people chances are one or two of them will kill you,” Al Jazeera English’s Mohamed Vall Salem wrote. “And I guess if you encourage people to go on insulting 1.5 billion people about their most sacred icons then you just want more killings because as I said in 1.5 billion there will remain some fools who don’t abide by the laws or know about free speech.”
Salem added: “What Charlie Hebdo did was not free speech it was an abuse of free speech in my opinion, go back to the cartoons and have a look at them! … It’ snot [sic] about what the drawing said, it was about how they said it. I condemn those heinous killings, but I’M NOT CHARLIE.”
In response, Al Jazeera English’s senior correspondent in Paris, Jacky Rowland, pushed back, reminding Salem that “#journalismsinotacrime.”
In turn, this prompted reporter Omar Al Saleh, who is currently on assignment in Yemen, to disagree sharply, stating in no uncertain terms that he does not identify or stand with Charlie Hebdo.
“First I condemn the brutal killing,” Saleh wrote. “But I AM NOT CHARLIE.”
“JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME [but] INSULTISM IS NOT JOURNALISM,” he added. “AND NOT DOING JOURNALISM PROPERLY IS A CRIME.”
National Review Online notes that the sharp differences between Al Jazeera’s employees comes at a time when the Qatar-based news organization continues its efforts to re-brand in the West by hiring more Western staffers.
A spokesperson for Al Jazeera did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
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This post has been updated.
