Editor's Insight: Why Europe says, 'Je suis Charlie' UPDATED

The assassinations of journalists and cartoonists at a satirical French newspaper will add to a wave of anti-Islamic feeling in Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have turned out in Paris, Lyons and other cities to defend freedom of speech and western democratic values against terrorism. In London, peaceful demonstrations and vigils have been held in Trafalgar Square and outside the French Embassy.

The rallying call is “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”)  – a reference to President Kennedy’s speech at the Berlin Wall in the 1960s and to the name of the weekly Charlie Hebdo, whose offices were invaded by three hooded gunmen at 11.30am Parisian time on Wednesday.

Police have identified the suspects as aged 18, 32 and 34. The two oldest are brothers and are on the run while the youngest has given himself into police.

[UPDATES: World leaders march: 'Paris is the capital of the world'

Authorities attribute identification to new surveillance laws
US and French intelligence believe that one of the two brothers, Said Kouachi, received weapons training in Yemen in 2011. 

The training was believed to be under the auspices of Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an al Qaeda offshoot known as AQAP, they say.

Both are French nationals and are on terrorist watch lists in the US and France. 

French authorities were able to identify them quickly because of a broad new anti-terrorist surveillance law.

Passed in late 2013 and put into effect on January 1, it gives French investigators more latitude to collect data in real time about individuals’ phone and internet traffic.

Tracing cellphone locations and scouring text messages and social media have become standard practice in French law-enforcement probes.

“We combine it all and we’re getting really effective at it,” a former French intelligence official says.

The New Zealand Parliament passed similar legislation late last year, though it was opposed by New Zealand First and the Greens.]

Eye witnesses say the gunmen chanted Islamic slogans “We have avenged the Prophet” and “Allaku Akbar” (God is greatest) as they left after killing a dozen people, including two police guards, and critically injuring five others.

The deaths included Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonnier ("Charb") and some of France’s most admired cartoonists.

A possible spark for the attack has been the publication in Paris this week of Michael Houellebcq's latest novel, Submission, about a Muslim running the country according to Sharia law and featuring on the cover of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo.

Founded in 1969 during the era of Charles de Gaulle, Charlie Hebdo belongs to a tradition of satirical publications in Europe, including Private Eye in the UK.

The offices of Charlie Hebdo were firebombed in November 2011, after it reprinted cartoons lampooning Mohammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper.

Muslims around the world demonstrated against the slurs on their religion but this hasn’t dampened the reaction of many in Europe to what they see as the dangers of “islamification.”

This has fuelled the growth of anti-immigration parties throughout northern and western Europe as millions of migrants have fled from conflicts and poverty in the Muslim countries of Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

France has reacted by banning Islamic practices such as the covering of women, while a Swiss referendum curbed the building the mosques. In Germany, anti-Islamic demonstrations have swelled in recent weeks.

Governments have also reacted by tightening security against further terrorist threats, which in France has resulted in several suicide bombings and attacks on civilian and police targets.

Political leaders including President Obama as well as Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Francis have condemned the latest attack. French President François Hollande has called it “barbaric.”

The western media have reported Islamic leaders in Egypt, the Arab League and the French Muslim Council as among those who have also condemned the attack.

But calls for tolerance and understanding are likely to be ignored in a response to a well-armed and military-style assassination with such a high death toll.

The attack also demonstrates that militant Islam isn’t a reaction to poverty or Western policies in the Middle East.

It is an ideological challenge to Western civilisation and principles, including a free press and religious pluralism.

It is a continuation of a campaign that stretches back to Ayatollah Khomeini ’s 1989 fatwa calling for the killing of British novelist Salman Rushdie.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a strong opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, pointed the way ahead in Arab countries when when he called for a “religious revolution” within Islam.

“It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [the Muslim community] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world,” he told the religion's leaders in Cairo. “The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move.” 

UPDATES 9/1/2015 to provide more detail on the search for the suspects and 12/1/2015 for mass march in Paris