This Thursday at noon, several hundred journalists and citizens gathered in front of the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo, at the invitation of SNJ, SNJ-CGT and CFDT, the three journalists unions affiliated to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its European group (EFJ).
Addressing the crowd, Anthony Bellanger, Deputy General Secretary of the IFJ said, "We are gathered here to pay tribute to our colleagues in Charlie Hebdo who were killed on Wednesday. We must stand up for them and for the entire profession, here in France but also around the world. We have received messages from Asia, Oceania, Africa and America. They are mobilizing everywhere to defend freedom of expression and freedom of the press. We are all Charlie Hebdo today. "
SNJ General Secretary, Dominique Pradalié said “We must remain mobilized” as she praised the work of the colleagues who died while working. Emmanuel Vire, General Secretary of the SNJ-CGT, insisted that the government had failed to do enough for the satirical weekly and must now do more to help the press. Isabelle Bordes, Deputy General Secretary of the CFDT, raised his pencil on behalf of journalists.
Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard, President of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) said: "I came to Paris to pay tribute to our French colleagues of Charlie Hebdo. This is a tragedy. To attack the freedom of the press is to attack democracy. " >
Brussels, 8 January 2015.
For more information, please contact IFJ on + 32 2 235 22 17 The IFJ represents more than 600 000 journalists in 134 countries
