Typical. Read it again. Nobody is justifying murder. All I personally said is that this was not a random case of innocents being targeted. If you **** with people like this expect what you get. I do not condone it, I've said that several times. If you still want to believe that, and take what you want to take from my comments, feel free. But I am not in any way justifying this or saying they got what they deserved. I just pointed out that it's not like someone being stabbed in the street for nothing, or that soldier in the UK who got killed. These guys pushed, knowing what they were doing could and probably would provoke this kind of reaction, and now suddenly they're ****ing heroes??

TH I get what you're saying but so what?

They drew a cartoon. If they didn't like it then protest or draw your own cartoon back or something but deaths over a cartoon? :D

Just because something is taboo doesn't mean that taboo is justified and should never be broken. Hindsight is just the hugest bitch, ain't it?

I think they are dead lads.

Police official: Suspects in Charlie Hebdo massacre killed, hostage freed - @AP latest

You are the editor of a small town newspaper. A well known violent thug lives with his mom on the same street as you. One day you publish a cartoon of his mom with the caption "I need to get laid". When asked why you did it you say "It's my right to do so". That night a rock comes through your window.

The next day you publish a cartoon of the thug's mom making out with a donkey. When asked why you did it you reply "Free speech baby". That night your backyard shed gets torched.

The next day you publish a cartoon of the thug's mom naked and getting boned from behind by the donkey. When asked why, considering how much the thug adores his mom, you reply "Hey, she's not my mom. I don't adore her". That night the thug breaks down your door and beats you to death.

Were you within your rights to publish what you did? Yes.

Was the thug wrong for killing you? Yes.

Did you use any common sense considering the particulars of the situation? No.

Should anyone be surprised you got killed? No.

So why does being surprised matter?

My point is that if you do something that you know is likely to provoke this kind of reaction, you can't really then cry about it. Okay, the reaction was extreme and abhorrent, and I condemn it. But this has happened before, almost exactly the same thing, in Denmark. Don't people learn? And if they don't why does everyone get in such an uproar over "free speech" when this happens? What was so important about lampooning Islamist beliefs that they had to risk their lives for it? How stupid is that?

You can't control how these nutjobs react, and yes I agree a far better and more considered response would have been preferred, but we all know how this goes down: there is no such thing as restraint among the violent element of Islamic radicalism. We've seen it before. Why should it change now? And knowing that, why provoke them? How is the world saved by a cartoon? Answer: it isn't. It's just people wanting to force their own arrogance and perceived superiority on others regardless of the consequences.

And again, anyone: the cops? Any way to end your life, defending some arrogant twat who ignores death threats and keeps doing the thing that is putting his life in jeopardy?

Anyone?

I keep reading about how people are shocked about what happened in France.

Oh ok. But why does it matter?

Charlie Hebdo is a fairly long-standing mag and very typical of French culture as well. The French in terms of satirical cartoons and drawn cartoons are probably in a class of their own and its very unique to their culture. The country probably has the biggest Muslim population in Europe and the French conservative establishment is still bitter towards the Algerian situation of the 1960s.

So with this type of history, the magazine was always treading on dangerous ground, so I wasn't overly shocked that something like this happened concerning Muslim extremists. Free speech is great and all, and it's what defines our western culture, but stuff changes and evolves, and I think the magazine should've been aware of the potential risks they were running.

As a few people have already mentioned here, just how far should free speech go when criticism is involved and where should common sense kick in?