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Belgium’s lower house of parliament has voted for a law banning the burqa in public yesterday. However, Christian Liberals and Democrats in the Senate could still challenge it, delaying its enforcement.
This week, 7 January 2025 marks exactly ten years since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, when Islamist gunmen stormed the satirical magazine’s Paris editorial office and killed 11 people over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. A month after the attack, the Turkish writer Elif Shafak wrote for us on the increasingly divisive world in which we live, and the urgent need to differentiate between the right to be offended and the right to commit violence. Ten years on, with the proliferation of fractious rhetoric on social media, her words seem more poignant than ever. To mark the anniversary of the tragedy, we have republished Shafak’s piece below. It was originally published online on 12 March 2015, and in print in Volume 44, Issue 1 of Index on Censorship. Charlie Hebdo has also produced a special edition to mark ten years, which you can read more about here.
After the horrific attacks against the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris, the world has turned into a Tower of Babel where there are too many languages spoken but too little, if any, real communication. Ever since those three days of terror in France, across the globe there has been more anger than sorrow, more emotional backlash than rational analysis, and more confusion than insight.
As heartwarming as it was to see millions of Parisians march against religious extremism and countless others show their solidarity via hashtags and messages on social media, we cannot ignore the fact that a rather disturbing cognitive gap is opening up between different parts of the world and different segments of humanity. Even in the face of atrocity, humankind is failing to speak the same language.
Among the political leaders who marched in Paris there were quite a few with a lamentable human rights curriculum vitae. While Saudi Arabia was quick to send a representative to France, the regime did not shy away from publicly lashing Raif Badawi, a liberal blogger, for his views. Israel, Russia and Egypt, among others, have been criticised for their double standards at home and abroad. Turkey, my motherland, has a shocking number of journalists and cartoonists either in prison or facing trial.
No doubt, the most moving response to the act of brutality came from cartoonists across the globe. With powerful images and few words they showed their unflinching support for freedom of expression. But those of us who cannot draw, and therefore must talk or write have done a poor job in general. With every aggrandising remark the cognitive gap widened.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy claimed: “This is a war declared on civilization.” Soon after, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced: “French citizens carry out such a massacre, and Muslims pay a price.” He then added: “Games are being played with the Islamic world, we need to be aware of this.” Such statements only served to increase conspiracy theories, which abound throughout the Middle East. Meanwhile journalists, academics and writers lampooned each other. The response to a book is another book.
So far, the language over Charlie Hebdo has been more divisive than unifying. Even the usage of conjunctions is a problem. After the tragedy, a top-level politician in Turkey tweeted that it was wrong to kill journalists, but they should not have mocked Islamic values. Never had the word “but” disturbed me so much.
The controversy had important echoes inside Turkey. The secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet wrote a powerful statement, saying that having lost some of their own writers to terrorism in the past, they understood so well the pain of the Charlie Hebdo killings. But the AKP government was of a different mind. The prime minister said printing the cartoons would be considered “heavy sedition” and they would not allow anyone to insult the Prophet. Accordingly, a court order was issued to prohibit access to Turkish websites that insisted in publishing Charlie Hebdo’s recent cover.
In response, independent news website T24 openly defied the court ban and published the entire issue of the magazine. And people kept spreading the cover via their Twitter and Facebook accounts. It was interesting to see how many of these reactions came from people who were already tired of the AKP government’s restrictive attitudes towards freedom of speech. As always, Turkey’s social media operated as a political platform. Over the years as media freedoms shrunk visibly, the social media became more and more politicised.
Every journalist, every poet, every novelist in Turkey knows words carry a heavy weight, and they can get you in trouble. We know that only too well that because of a poem, an article, a novel, or even a tweet we can be sued, put on trial, demonised, even imprisoned. When we write, we write with this knowledge at the back of our minds. As a result there is a lot of silent self-censorship. Yet we find it rather difficult to talk about this subject, mostly because it is embarrassing.
As a Turkish writer both freedom of speech and freedom of imagination are precious to me. When I travel in Muslim-majority countries I often hear people saying “I am offended, don’t I have a right to be?” Yet I believe we are making a grave mistake by focusing on the word “offence”, and questioning whether art can be offensive or people have a right to be offended. We are stuck in a mental trap as long as we cannot manage to discuss violence and offence separately.
We need to divorce the two notions. It is perfectly human to be offended in the face of mockery, opprobrium or slander. That is understandable. Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christians or agnostics, we can all feel offended by something someone says, writes or does. But that is where the line must be drawn. What is inhuman and unacceptable is to resort to violence and shed blood in response.
The response to a book is another book. The response to an article is writing a counter-article. The response to cartoons is more cartoons, not fewer. Words need to be answered with words. This simple equation is what we have failed to teach to both the younger generations and ourselves.
Let’s be clear: this is not a clash of civilizations. It is not even a battle of religions. Yet it is a clash, and a deepening one, between two mindsets. The real chasm is between those of us who believe in pluralistic democracy, culture of co-existence and the value of diversity and cosmopolitanism, and those who have chosen to divide humanity into mutually exclusive camps: us versus them. It is a cognitive clash therefore.
As Sufis have been saying throughout the centuries, we are all profoundly interconnected. Globalism has way too often been interpreted as an economic and political phenomenon. Yet it also means that our futures, our stories and our destinies are interconnected. The unhappiness of someone living in Pakistan affects the happiness of someone living in Belgium or Australia. We must understand that in this complex web of relations any divisive rhetoric is bound to create more of the same.
Extremism somewhere breeds extremism elsewhere. Islamophobia spawns anti-Westernism and anti-Westernism spawns Islamophobia. A far-right racist in Germany might regard a Taliban man in Pakistan as his arch-enemy but in fact, they are kindred spirits. They share surprisingly similar narrow mindsets. And what’s more, they need each other to exist and to thrive.
We need to get out of the vicious circle of division and hatred before it engulfs us all. Together we must stand and speak up for pluralistic democracy and harmonious coexistence. At the same time, however, now is the time to think about the response we have given to the tragedy calmly and carefully. In this response lie the hidden important clues to our strengths and weaknesses as fellow human beings and the sharpest dilemmas that will continue to beset the world in the 21st century.
In August 2021, when the Taliban took over Kabul and home searches became ubiquitous, women started to delete anything they thought could get them in trouble. Books were burned, qualifications were shredded, laptops were smashed. But for 21 members of a women’s creative writing group, a lifeline remained: their WhatsApp group. Over the next year they would use this forum to share news with one another (a story that has since been chronicled in the recently published book My Dear Kabul, which was published by Coronet and is an Untold Narratives project, a development programme for marginalised writers). Doing so through WhatsApp was not incidental. Instead the app’s use of end-to-end-encryption provided a strong level of protection. The only way the Taliban would know what they were saying was if they found their phones, seized them, forced them to hand over passwords and went into their accounts. They could not otherwise read their messages.
End-to-end encryption is not sexy. Nor do those four words sound especially interesting. It’s easy to switch off when a conversation about it starts. But as this anecdote shows it’s vitally important. Another story we recently heard, also from Afghanistan: a man hid from the Taliban in a cave and used WhatsApp to call for help. Through it, safe passage to Pakistan was arranged.
It’s not just in Afghanistan where end-to-end encryption is essential. At Index we wouldn’t be able to do our work without it. We use encrypted apps to message between our UK-based staff and to keep in touch with our network of correspondents around the world, from Iran to Hong Kong. We use it to keep ourselves safe and we use it to keep others safe. Our responsibility for them is made manifest by our commitment to keep our communication and their data secure.
Beyond these safety concerns we know end-to-end encryption is important for other reasons: It’s important because we share many personal details online, from who we are dating and who we vote for to when our passport expires, what our bank details are and even our online passwords. In the wrong hands these details are very damaging. It’s important too because privacy is essential both in its own right and as a guarantor of our other fundamental freedoms. Our online messages shouldn’t be open to all, much as our phone lines shouldn’t be tapped. Human rights defenders, journalists, activists and MPs message via platforms like Signal and WhatsApp for their work, as do people more broadly who are unsettled by the principle of not having privacy.
Fortunately, today accessible, affordable and easy-to-use encryption is everywhere. The problem is its future looks uncertain.
Last October, the Online Safety Act was passed in the UK, a sprawling piece of legislation that puts the onus on social media firms and search engines to protect children from harmful content online. It’s due to come into force in the second half of 2025. In it, Section 121 gives Ofcom powers to require technology companies to “use accredited technology” that could undermine encryption. At the time of the Act’s passage, the government made assurances this would not happen but comments from senior political figures like Sadiq Khan, who believe amendments to the acts are needed, have done little to reassure people.
It’s not just UK politicians who are calling for a “back door”.
“Until recently, traditional phone tapping gave us information about serious crime and terrorism. Today, people use Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook, etc. (…) These are encrypted messaging systems (…) We need to be able to negotiate what you call a ‘back door’ with these companies. We need to be able to say, ‘Mr. Whatsapp, Mr. Telegram, I suspect that Mr. X may be about to do something, give me his conversations,’” said French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin last year.
Over the last few years police across Europe, led by French, Belgium and Dutch forces, have breached the encryption of users on Sky ECC and EncroChat too. Many criminals were arrested on the back of these hacking operations, which were hailed a success by law enforcement. That may be the case. It’s just that people who were not involved in any criminal activity would also have had their messages intercepted. While on those occasions public outcry was muted, it won’t be if more commonly used tools such as WhatsApp or Signal are made vulnerable.
Back to the UK, if encryption is broken it would be a disaster. Not only would companies like Signal leave our shores, other nations would likely follow suit.
For this reason we’re pleased to announce the launch of a new Index campaign highlighting why encryption is crucial. WhatsApp, the messaging app, have kindly given us a grant to support the work. As with any grant, the grantee has no influence over our policy positions or our work (and we will continue to report critically on Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, as we would any other entity).
We’re excited to get stuck into the work. We’ll be talking to MPs, lawyers, people at Ofcom and others both inside and outside the UK. With a new raft of MPs here and with conversations about social media very much in the spotlight everywhere it’s a crucial moment to make the case for encryption loud and clear, both publicly and, if we so chose, in a private, encrypted forum.
While the outcome of the 2024 election is yet to be finalised, results at the time of writing show that Eurosceptic conservatives are on course to win an extra 14 seats (taking them to 83), while right-wing nationalists will gain nine seats (to 58). Overall, the right, including centre-right politicians of the European People’s Party grouping, has done well, largely at the expense of the liberal and green party groupings. With just five nations out of 27, including Italy and Estonia, remaining to publish their final results, the overall picture is unlikely to change dramatically.
The move to the far right is evident across Europe. France, which elects 81 members to the European Parliament (EP), was perhaps where this was most evident. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party is projected to receive around 31-32% of the vote, against President Macron’s centrist party, which is estimated to reach around 15% of the vote. Macron was so concerned about his party’s poor showing that he has called an election in the country. Belgium’s prime minister also handed in his resignation after the nationalist New Flemish Alliance emerged as the big winner after regional, national and European Parliament elections were held in the country on Super Sunday.
In Germany, Eurosceptic parties are projected to secure over 16% of the EP vote. The AfD tripled its support from voters under 24 from 5% in 2019 to 16% and gains six seats to reach 15. The Greens lost nine seats from 21 last time around. Austria’s far-right Freedom Party gained nearly 26% of the vote, gaining three seats, while in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s anti-immigration Party for Freedom gained six seats with 17% of the vote. A similar story played out in Poland, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia.
But what is driving Europe’s veer to the right?
There is some evidence that the success of the far right comes from millennial and Gen Z voters shifting towards these parties. A third of French voters under 34 and 22% of young German voters favour their country’s far right, while in the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom has become the largest party among under-34s.
Young Europeans, mainly those aged 18-29, overwhelmingly rely on social media for daily news consumption. In Italy and Denmark, nearly three-quarters of young adults use social media for news daily (74% and 75%). A recent German youth study found that 57% of youth prefer social media for news and political updates.
There is growing concern that external actors, particularly from Russia, may have influenced the elections.
Media reports reveal that EU leaders were so concerned about foreign interference in the elections that they set up rapid alert teams to manage any serious incidents. Officials told the Guardian that disinformation has reached “tsunami levels.”
The evidence points to Russia.
Last December, France’s VIGINUM group, which is tasked with protecting France and its interests against foreign digital interference, published a report revealing a network of nearly 200 websites with addresses of the form pravda-xx.com or xx.news-pravda.com, where xx is the country identifier.
The sites, which generate little new content themselves, instead amplify existing pro-Russian content from state sources and social media, including posts from military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk. Pro-Russian content relating to the Ukraine war is a particular favourite.
Thirty-four fact-checking organisations in Europe, showed that the Pravda network had spread to at least 19 EU countries. Fact-checking organisation Greece Fact Check, in cooperation with Pagella Politica and Facta news, has since noticed that the Pravda network has been attempting to convey large amounts of disinformation and pro-Russia propaganda to sway EU public opinion.
The organisation said that “minor pro-Russian politicians who run for the elections are quoted by state media such as Ria and then further amplified by the Pravda network, in what seems an attempt to magnify their relevance”.
A report by EDMO on EU-related disinformation ahead of the elections found that it was at its highest ever level in May 2024. Ministers for European affairs from France, Germany, and Poland cautioned about efforts to manipulate information and mislead voters. Across the EU, authorities observed a resurgence in coordinated operations spreading anti-EU and Ukraine narratives through fake news websites and on social media platforms Facebook and X.
Among the false stories that emerged and covered were reports that EU President Ursula Von der Leyen had links to Nazism and had been arrested in the European Parliament.
In Germany, there were stories circulating that the country’s vote was being manipulated, ballot papers with holes or corners cut were invalid and that anyone voting for the far-right party AfD would follow stricter rules. Other stories attempted to trick voters into multiple voting or signing their ballot papers, practices that would invalidate their votes.
The report also noted that around 4% of such disinformation articles have been created using AI tools.
The tsunami of disinformation looks unlikely to fade away any time soon. The Guardian says that the EU’s rapid alert teams have been asked to continue their work for weeks after the election.
A senior official told the paper, “The expectation is that it is around election day that we will see this interruption of narratives questioning the legitimacy of the European elections, and in the weeks around it.”