 four years ago, and he was an extremist as well, and that caused immense heart-searching and difficulties for the Norwegian government. We hope to be joined by him shortly. But I make that point because it isn't just about Charlie Hebdo. It's about something far broader, and each of you will have your own perspectives depending on the countries that you come from. And at the moment what we're seeing in Germany with the anti-Islam movement Pagida and what they've been doing in Dresden, it's interesting overnight that leader has had to step down because he took a selfie of himself disguised as Hitler with a moustache and short haircut. So he's had to stand down showing the power of the media, but I don't really want this to be a discussion about the media. What I would like, and some of you have seen how well this has worked in the last couple of days, is please do use your tablets or smartphones, and I'm not going to become brand friendly here. If you want to hashtag, there is there the hashtag open society, because it means that I can then get an idea as you're listening to the panellys and others in the audience, your views, and you can help drive the direction of travel if you think it's going in the wrong direction or you would like it to go in another direction. So we've got an hour to discuss this. It is to underscore securing open societies and joining us across the platform from me, Abdullah bin Baya, welcome, who is president of the forum for promoting peace in Muslim societies from the United Arab Emirates. And that's one of the most, named one of the most influential Muslims. He was named one of the most influential Muslims between 2009 and 2013. And he said very clearly, we must declare war on war. So the outcome will be peace upon peace. And he's issued a fat war against ISIS fighters and against Boko Haram in Nigeria. We're also joined by Kenneth Roth, Ken, welcome, who is executive director of Human Rights Watch based in the United States, but prolific and very influential right around the world. Also by Gene Bogo, welcome, who's president of internews USA. And I just want to ask you to just explain what internews is. We're a non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering local media and freedom of expression around the world. We're not a news organisation at all. We're about capacity building in some of the hardest to work countries where there hasn't traditionally been a media. So we're working in Burma, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Central African Republic. You call it Burma, not Myanmar. Myanmar. Okay, right. Thanks. And finally up here on the platform is Patrick Chapeck, normally based in Los Angeles. But I'm coming to you last because I want them in the gallery over there to put up, my colleagues, to put up the kind of thing that you do. You're a cartoonist and you're an editorial cartoonist for the New York Times, for Switzerland's Le Tons and also Amazon Tag. Could we put up the first cartoon because this is what Patrick drew within a few hours of what happened at Charlie Hebdo. Without humour, we are all dead and the cracked pen in the bottom left hand corner. Now, Patrick, I'd like to ask you to describe that because this, of course, is emblematic of an open society which brought 4 million onto the streets of France with all the leaders there as well, many of them, 40 big leaders coming to join the march. What was going through your mind as you drew that? Well, on that day, Wednesday, I woke up to that nightmare. Still have a hard time waking up from that. You were in Los Angeles. I was in Los Angeles learning the news with a time difference and I had to work out, the New York Times called me and asked me to do a cartoon right away. So I had to process that while doing cartoons and talking because we haven't stopped talking for two weeks as a cartoonist and people from the media and society. So this shows that it has struck everybody. It has struck us in our hearts and minds. It's not about cartoons. We have all felt that it's about something much, much bigger and it's very disorienting when people who bring us this humor are themselves the target of tragedy. It's very deep. We feel that what is at stake is as important as the year that we're bred. It is freedom. It is humor and it's in a way it's the sacred against the sacred because on one side you have religion and sacred beliefs and on the other side you have a very deep rooted need for freedom of expression. You know what? I could have passed for the most clever man in the world at some point in 2005 when a German magazine coming to interview me, the guy asked me, what do you think is the greatest issue of our time? That's quite a question. And then out of nowhere I answered, well maybe the fact that we are in a globalized world and at the same time we have communities that are more and more walled in and the collision of the two might be a big issue and it sounded weird so they didn't publish my remark but just two weeks after that the Danish cartoon controversy happened and I think it's the first conflict of globalization. It's a cultural conflict. It's a cultural shock. How much when you were thinking about what you were going to put on paper did you think how far dare I go because of what's happened to Charlie Hebdo? In other words what you might draw providing it's published that that might lead to anger about you. Did you constrain yourself at all in what you said and what you drew? In the last two weeks, I want to say that for us this struggle between the freedom of expression and the responsibility that goes with it dates back from 2005. But now it has become bloody. It has become really tragic and there is the fear and there's the possibility of death. Well the reason I'm just pushing you on a very personal basis is because a lot of newspapers and television stations particularly because of national laws decided not to even show the follow-up front cover of Charlie Hebdo because of their fears and also because of the legal constraints. Did you feel at any point that I can't be quite as free, I can't express myself quite as freely as I feel I should? You know what I want to say no and I've said no and I've answered no to that question. The real answer, the candid one, is I don't know in the long term how this will affect us cartoonist writers, journalists. There is this shadow but when I want to say freedom of speech is not, I mean you don't have to feel obliged to draw Muhammad all of a sudden. You don't have to feel obliged to even publish the front page of Charlie Hebdo. Freedom of speech is precisely a judgment between what you feel you need to do, who you are talking to, what your audience is. That's how I feel it and I'm trying to do the same job I was doing before 2005 and before two weeks ago. Perfect. There is a responsibility. I'm working for mainstream newspapers, not for Charlie Hebdo. It's a different kind of job. Help us frame the discussion for the next 50-55 minutes because there's a second cartoon, which I think is important to help us understand where you see the dilemmas now. Explain this one. Well, you know, I've been asked very often if I'm worried for myself if I'm afraid. I'm more worried for democracy for society right now and I see the use that can be made of cartoons and cartoonists. I think cartoonists should not be hostage of anyone's, you know, of we shouldn't be soldiers in a war and there is that risk. There is a trap behind us of more extremism of these issue being used by both sides. It was the case in a way with the Danish cartoons. It might be the case again. I think Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, they don't want to be the best friends of the far right and of Marine Le Pen in France and we know that both extremes are using this issue as a symbolic one. They're using cartoons as a pretext for many other things. Right. I should say perhaps for Sheikh Bin Bayer, let me just translate so your interpreter can translate for you up on that screen. In the top left-hand corner the balloon says, now I fear both Islamic and lower down and anti-Islamic radicalism and Seleger it's war so that the the Sheikh is familiar with what we're showing and all of those of you who speak English can understand. Right. Let's now try and broaden the context about securing societies, securing open societies. Ken at Human Rights Watch you spend all your time monitoring and almost giving a grade to where there are open societies and where they're under threat. How would you now define the threat when it comes to securing open societies and has what happened with Charlie Hebdo in any way in your view changed it fundamentally? I don't know about fundamentally but it is it's a challenge. In other words the traditionally the debate there's actually even a split between America and Europe on this where in America which tends to sort of believe in even more open free expression than in Europe you could advocate violence so long as you didn't incite violence. Inciting could be prohibited, advocacy was permitted, protected. Europe was more willing to suppress advocacy of violence. What we have here with Charlie Hebdo is neither. No one at Charlie Hebdo was telling anybody to go commit an act of violence. The issue with Charlie Hebdo is what happens when the speech offends someone and should we be able to suppress the speech just because somebody finds it offensive. So this we're into whole new territory and if we get it all serious about suppressing merely offensive speech I feel that an open society would be very much in jeopardy. You're monitoring the intelligence agencies and what governments and how they're reacting and Andrew Parker the head of MI5 gave a speech literally a couple of weeks ago as though neither second speech is ever given. It happened to be the day after Charlie Hebdo but he made very clear the dilemmas that are faced where the society expects freedom but also wants security. I've got to say that speech really bothered me. He was exploiting this tragedy to try to pursue his political agenda and what he was pushing for was really more of an opportunity to mass vacuum up our communications data and even our communications content and second he was fighting. But he says that's the price we have to play. Well yes exactly and the second thing just to put on the table and I'll answer this is that with the Snowden revelations many of the internet and phone companies have reacted by encrypting and he's saying we've got to keep a back door we have to allow ourselves to get past this encryption. Now what's interesting if you look at what happened in Paris this is not a situation of the intelligence agencies lacking adequate information. They were flooded with information they had so much information that they couldn't follow up and so these all the attackers were known to the police but the police made a decision these guys aren't as important as some others. We're going to go after the people who visited Syria we're going to ignore the people who merely visited Yemen. So you know what that suggests to me first of all is that we have been investing too much in information collection and not enough in the analysis and follow-up and on the question of the encryption you know what these brilliant terrorists you know the encryption that they used they borrowed their wives mobile phones and talked to each other through these second phones. Now you know this is not rocket science again it shows that you know what while MI5 is pushing for these high tech solutions we need some of ordinary solutions of people actually following up and doing the legwork to pursue the people we know. So quickly our open society is now under threat particularly because of the counter-terrorism imperative which has been created by Charlie Hebdo and other events as well and the way governments are now reacting. Yes I think that we're going to get a reaction to where some people are going to say we have to restrict offensive speech and offensive speech you know there's always somebody who's going to be offended so that's a big threat and second the right to privacy is not distinct from the right to free expression because many people need privacy in order to speak if you live in China you need to be able to speak anonymously you need your privacy or the government's going to come after you even in in you know societies like the west journalists are having a hard time getting governmental sources to speak to them when they can't trust that the conversation is going to be private because the governmental sources clam up so yes an open society is very much in jeopardy because of the reaction to Charlie Hebdo. I should just tell you what Andrew Parker said at the end of his speech my sharpest concern that director general of MI5 is the growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the decreasing availability of capabilities to address it so he was highlighting a dilemma. Exactly and that's the wrong dilemma because what what Charlie Hebdo shows is that this was not about inadequate information it was about inadequate investment in following up. Right let me now if I may shake bin by up can I come to you and ask what your assessment is and you all need headsets here what is your assessment of the impact particularly of the Charlie Hebdo event the 17 deaths there but also the repercussions and what governments have now tried to do to tighten the issue of security in other words the possibility of an open society being under increased threat now in the name of god the answer to that is first of all to answer about the actual challenge the challenge is about balance the like one walking on a tightrope and it's easy to fall he could also if he doesn't fall he can reach his his objective how do we balance this affair without any justification for Charlie Hebdo it was a murder and it was I am totally against it and it was completely against the law islamic or otherwise and I've been on the record saying this but in terms of the sacredness of the religion and and and freedom of speech we have to use some quick words here well there's there's a right and a responsibility how do we how do we find that balance between the responsibility and the right yeah the people have a right to speak freely but you also have a responsibility that you don't insult or mock other people there has to be some sense of of responsibility so we have to define you know the behavior of people that people are responsible for what they do they there are responsibilities so he's this comes from knowledge and ethical behavior and people have to have ethical behavior yes people are free but they're also responsible on their actions if you if you draw a if you draw a cartoon and if you know this is going to mock and harm other people then then at that point yeah yeah what you did is to harm other people it's it's it's merely for that something's wrong with that we have to avoid that just ethically we it's necessary that you know for instance the anti-semitic cartoons we don't accept these you know if you harm you know things that harm people's religion mock their religions or mock their their ethnicities it's wrong you can you can you can criticize religion you can do all these things and and but you can't but insulting people and mocking people this is a civilization problem it's about civility it's so one group says this is a good thing another person says it's a bad thing like you listen to a pigeon some say that it's it's beautiful and it's another say no it's an ugly sound so this is a different opinion so one sees a kind of singing and another says an ugly sound same with weeping so people will see weeping and other people will see moaning I'd like to just ask you this though we are talking about securing open societies and I apologize for those online you're not getting the translation at the moment but I can't repeat what shagbyr has said because what I'd like to move on to is when you issued your fatwa against ISIS fighters and against Boko Haram quickly what was the reaction that you got but more equally importantly what happened in Nigeria when it brought together Christians and Muslims what you said did it have an effect on the politics of dealing with Boko Haram and what they were doing in northeast Nigeria your intervention in other words helping you hoped helping to secure some kind of open debate about this within Nigeria I wanted to from this action I wanted two things I had two objectives one of them was to convince persuade these youth that are going into these things that this is a wrong path it's it's not a path to paradise the second thing I wanted to persuade also those that it's possible to persuade amongst scholars that give fatwas supporting things like Boko Haram or die that these are wrong that these are actually against the religion and this is this is a problem that we're really suffering from and spoken societies also suffer from you know they have multicultural multi-religious societies you have to understand the culture of a theater of a religious society you have to understand that we've got idiots scholars also because my final question to you is do you are using open society to condemn ISIS to condemn Boko Haram do you feel under threat yourself for making these condemnations I think crazy people yeah and you have to be afraid from them you're if if if if if you if you attack somebody they'll attack you this is this this is a problem he said you have to fear crazy people and if people if you attack them then you have to fear that they might attack you now jean what's your reflection because you're not just here as someone from the media because you're here because of the work you have been doing in many other parts of the world where you're trying particularly in a place like Myanmar which remains under quasi military leadership still despite what they say there are 14 different wars going on in that country and all of them are labeled some in some way extremist activities by the by 10 cent the president and others what's your reflection across all those other areas you're working in well i'm i am worried about sort of a double chilling effect on civil society and on open government i mean the first one is the the attack on freedom of expression freedom of press there is journalists right now it is an incredibly dangerous profession it's gotten more dangerous over the last decade and the journalists that i work with in all sorts of countries across the world are the ones who are actually getting hit hurt the most i mean the the 85 percent of journalists killed in iraq were iraqi journalists and not international journalists and so there's a there's been an incredible pressure on journalism and freedom of expression anyway and i think that this is going to harm that this is making journalism is much broader than the traditional journalist everyone out there is i don't like the phrase but is a kind of citizen journalist but there are literally i want to get that point on burma too so i'm worried about that one piece because journalists are not combatants but sometimes are viewed as combatants and that is hurting freedom of expression broadly the other piece though is a reaction and sort of the the the government actions and when we put too much in the security there's all sorts of governments out there that are using exactly the examples of europe and the united states and in our anti-terrorism efforts to clamp down on civil society in other countries and so you get this double you get hit on both sides basically sort of hurting open society hurting civil society in the context of mi ammar it is interesting again i speak from the perspective of what's happened in the media there you have a double thing happening there as well the some of this exciting openness you could imagine in sort of opening up the information space there that was just unimaginable you know five years ago and and happening now but in that same space in the same heroes of media and information and journalism there you're finding hate speech sort of flowing through and most of it's coming through the social media so that's sort of the wonder of having social media in in yangon is is amazing but in what we're seeing is an incredible amount of hate speech that's sort of fueling those conflicts in in the country and so it's it's the openness is triggering other things and it's it's it's challenging delicate civil society so these types of external pressures only make it all the more challenging have you sensed a reaction after the horror of what happened in paris from our journalist look partners no i know i've actually been surprised by that and we have it there's been different situations and incidents uh uh that we have worried about it where there has been a tax on for example where we have a lot of programs in afghanistan we have a lot of partners in afghanistan and there have been other incidents that have triggered a tax on you know radio stations in afghanistan because of something that happened to west we didn't get the same response this time which i'm pleased with i mean that is that is i guess a one one for civil society there which is good i want to open it up to others but do you believe that securing open societies is now under threat despite the proliferation of digital capability to have open societies yeah yes i mean i'm i'm here did you hear a hedge in my voice yes i see it so i saw it as well amazing i see so much courage i see so much amazing work out there i see that a complete commitment in these countries in which we worked to an open and civil society people willing to die for it on a on a regular basis and so i see tremendous hope with that in fact i take it back all right what do you see ken rothan and i'll come to you patry the tensions here about the digitization of the space everyone can can say something there's empowerment but at the same time governments are trying to clamp down well it's a real cat and mouse game right now in other words the the emergence of social media has been tremendously empowering because you know we used to have to depend on the bbc to get the world out and the word out and today everybody can get the word out so that democratization of the megaphone is very important but the flip side of this is that you know because social media by definition is all happening online it's easy to monitor and so governments are investing enormous resources you know not simply anymore you know the chinese firewall blocking the chinese people from gaining access to the web but rather monitoring social media users and it's you know it used to be that the dissident might be whispering in a corner here it's all public it's all online it's all available for the government to monitor and clamped out and so we're seeing both happening this explosion of voices but also an intensification of the repression patrick your view about the this tension and which way it's moving well first um kind of replaying to the notion that i mean cartonies don't go out and you know think what who i'm gonna insult today let's just remind that political cartoning 99% of it is about issues it's really making a point on something giving a comment uh picking up at what what's wrong and in the process you may offend some people or a lot of people but it's uh it's not the first goal and the first aim then you can have anyone look at that it's just paper and pen anyone in uh can do an offensive cartoon and the thing is now it can be posted and and it can be spread all over the world you're more sense of decency sense of responsibility all those things are very cultural some things are not meant to be seen cartoons by charlie hebdo 40 000 circulation in france they were not meant to be seen by peasants in afghanistan so how do we what do we do with that that's that's that's the main that's the main issue it's all right i would like to say that to put it bluntly an open society because our societies need to remain open is one where uh you are free to say and to draw what you want and in a way they are free to kill us commenting on this mohan murty out there has said a blunt pen is as deadly and dangerous as a razor sharp sword and both both must be used with restraint uh vince fiero an open society is one that does not give in to people that want to close it it includes anyone that respects the other now let's broaden the debate and you saw uh walking in kiel grannhagen from norway welcome i know you haven't been able to hear what we've been saying up to now but we are talking about securing open societies and we've mentioned um the head of mi five in britain uh not just because i come from britain talking about the dilemmas now and one of the things i've made clear is that this is not just about charlie abdo and muslim extremism this is about extremism in many forms and i mentioned norway and i just wonder if you could uh help us understand the challenge to a country like norway after all bravik was doing it for a completely different reason on otoya island four years ago and you were involved in handling this what you've discovered about dealing with those who are determined to do something extreme whatever their reasons for it well thank you and again apologies for coming late i can just came from another panel um thank you anyway for coming i want you to know that that i am the director of an external service so i did not have direct responsibility for how norway handled the bravik but you sit in the national security council well i do and i obviously uh i and as an observer you could see how that was done uh i think everyone that watched this whether it was from the inside or norway or from the outside would notice that this was a an enormous national tragedy to norway uh on the other hand i think it was handled both by our political leadership and by the population in general in a very decent manner i think there were quite a few professional casualties you lost their jobs over it absolutely the police well uh just to some extent but on the other hand uh i also think that uh that uh as a country as a whole it was handled in a decent way it was a decent court procedure done for mr bravik and the evaluation that was done in the society afterwards was taken very seriously and a number of corrective measures have been applied and some will need to be applied also in the future but norway is seen as a very open society a very rich open society as well which doesn't tend to look at the reaction that there was immediately it must be due to migration and probably muslim and then it turned out to be bravik give us an idea in a couple of minutes of the heart searching that went on for you and of course the politicians you answer to about how you maintain norway as an open society but knowing that this kind of thing could happen and how many was it 76 killed on otoya right yeah you're absolutely right that was a big challenge to the society was it resolved i think that a lot of measures have been implemented since the attack that makes us better prepared for something that will come in the future the problem of course is that you probably won't have history repeating itself and the next threat that we may face may be very different from this one do you think norway's a less open society as a result of what happened and you've had a change of government as well not really but i think based on the situation that has developed also since the the incident with mr bravik in europe in general and on a global basis also has forced norwegian politicians to consider other types of measures to ensure national security and to to ensure public security than we had in the past can i just ask you one other technical question within the bounds of whatever you can say you also had another terrible event two years ago in the desert of algeria involving your national oil company stat oil when a group of al-qaeda in the margreb took over the inamana gas plant and you lost a lot of people it was a massive problem for you for the brits for stat oil for bp and also the algerians did you have any inkling that that was going to happen now i mean that that was more on on my territory so to say because it was something happening abroad we did not have intelligence concrete intelligence suggesting that this could happen but on the other hand i think anybody who followed the developments in north africa at that time realized that at some point this could happen somewhere in that region and also there we have gone through some soul searching and seen is and looked into how our service in a better way can try to monitor the activities of these these groups and be better in maybe forecasting future events all right there the the the real challenges for someone in your position thanks for thanks very much for joining us let me get some more more views oliva mattin and can i ask you your author of violence in god's name and you explore the roots of violence reflect on what you've been hearing particularly about the the ways of guaranteeing an open society and securing an open society then i'll get some more views as well i think first of all it's important to define what we mean by an open society and for me it should be a society that offers real opportunity to to individuals to contribute to the development of that society and to the shaping of its future now i think it's not a matter of education it's not a matter of material wealth but it's a matter of feeling you're a stakeholder in contributing now when that is absent i think there is a real risk that individuals within any society will look for alternative outlets their their frustrations their anger or whatever and i think in in that situation they become very vulnerable vulnerable to different types of narratives that offer them a sense of identity purpose reshaping the whole of society and i think for me that that is one of the real um issues that we need to address in the present day let me go to david rosin a rabbi international director of interreligious affairs for the american jewish committee in israel david what is your reflection we've seen particularly the response of prime minister netin yahoo and the speed at which he went to paris and joined the other world leaders but more broadly given the dilemmas of your state of securing an open society reflect on that for us can you so you're asking me not in my capacity in terms of international and faith relations but as an israeli in whichever way you want to answer it because i think these are two these are not the same question um there is an issue of a broad international context where paradoxically if you like the blessings of modern technological diverse society are also its curses where we have opportunities that we've never had before but yet the capacities for just a couple of nutcases or one to do terrible things on a scale are unprecedented and how do you manage to be able to ensure that these opportunities are not abused and then there's a context of how a particular conflict therefore is brought in to this broader context and i think that you are always going to find the need on part of people to find an outlet for their frustrations and where there are conflicts that are at the cutting edge of civilizational relationship historical relationships the questions of their own engagement with tradition modernity those conflicts are going to be used and abused by vested interests do you want to be more specific to me yes please no then go ahead and ask me no um i what do you want to say david about about where you believe this is going and the kind of potential rupture that has been created by charlie ebdo but also with these other issues we're talking about extremism in so many other countries too including in a country like norway even if it's only one man yes i think it goes back to what sheikh bin bayo is saying it's a question that we have to respect to these freedoms we have to secure these freedoms as also as oliver mctern said we've got to give people a sense that their security will come about by a sense where people have a stake within their society if they feel they have nothing to live for they will only have something to die for we have to work to guarantee that these people are engaged with in those societies but we have to try to develop a culture that is not only free and open but is responsible that's the area that is to do both with political civic society religious leadership in which people have a sense of of care and respect for one another and therefore don't abuse those particular freedoms it's very interesting that the president president orland got very excited about the burning of the french flag which understandably so but nevertheless that was clearly for him somebody who crossed the line it was more significant for him than necessarily crossing the line of insulting somebody's identity i think all these point to dilemmas within modern society of where we have to take into account how our actions can lead to consequences reverberate and boomerang on us so it's a delicate balance all right well let's get another voice matia rica you're a buddhist monk you've been a buddhist monk studying buddhism in the Himalayas or Himalayas i should say for 40 years what's your reflection from your religion so first i think there's two kinds of fights for open society one is a within a totalitarian system you're fighting for freedom of opinion freedom of expression freedom of movement so for basic freedom so that's a fight for achieve open society now within an already functional democracy like france of course there's a fight to preserve that but as it was said it can also come with responsibility and so if you offend someone too bad if that's only stops there that people are offended and you know they have to make with it but if that goes further in terms of consequences and you know that within a few days there will be five dead in niger or 10 days in afghanistan when it was the case in the first place then you have to think you know imbue freedom of expression with a sense of consideration altruistic consideration of others because i do not want to be the cause of 15 people dead because people are very simplistic views they react very you know with gut feelings they lack education so there's other indirect way to open the society to education to different ways of achieving this openness ken you wanted to come in yeah i'd like to address this concept that's come up with a few of the comments about the distinction between a right and a responsibility and this can be understood in two different ways the dangerous way is to say you only have a right if you exercise it responsibly and the reason that's dangerous is because you're basically telling governments whatever you think is responsible you can censor anything else and you can be sure that governments will will define responsibility by things that you know don't criticize us you know and you very quickly don't have a right anymore the alternative way to look at that is to say you've got a right to say pretty much whatever you want but we will use various tools of persuasion to encourage you to exercise that right responsibly and that's fine in other words governments people civil society religious leaders by all means should urge all of us to exercise their right responsibly but that's very different from saying that right is contingent that we can be censored if we don't exercise that in somebody else's view responsibly let's pick up on that gene and she buy it do you agree with kenroth on this gene i do agree with that i mean i think it's just too hard that the limits and again the countries in which we work the limits would be very very extreme and so i couldn't agree more patrick isn't it interesting that we are all saying the same thing like i think was the first to speak about we'll show you just say yes and move on freedom goes with responsibility and that cartoonist since the danish cartoons have been really struggling with that notion that you know we understand there is a new world where you need to criticize and to be able to criticize absolutely freely and at the same time we are trying hard to listen we need to do both at the same time but then um there is a perimeter in any society for freedom of speech it's either the the you know the media you work for the audience or it is the the legal perimeter there are laws it's in France you can be condemned for defamation it's in the french law about the freedom of press charlie ebdo went to was was dragged in court because of the of the cartoons offending islam well the judge decided they were they were not condemned so there is a perimeter we don't have international laws we don't have an international law about what's decent or about blasphemy what is the what is the answer do you want the perimeter to to change all right we're raising a lot of questions here it's really the question about even if you don't agree with you know to quote the whole the whole quote if you don't agree with what they are saying we need to fight for them to be able to say it sheikh baya do you feel comfortable by the way our discussion has been going so far in terms of the dilemmas the challenges and also the impossibilities sometimes of identifying those threats to open societies even if governments want to secure uh that open society i think that that what we're talking about is going in a good way it's it's this balance between freedom and between this this responsibility between our emotions and between our intellect i want to add something those who do these things and they're helping the the terrorists they want everybody to fight so in that way they want us all to be fighting each other so so that there's nobody balanced anymore if if you're always cultivating contempt amongst people then you're helping these people because this is what they want they really want war and because war is based on contempt of the other and so they have to feel some kind of responsibility here because they're helping the very enemies of these people let me now get a couple of other voices if i may please firstly to Bernadette Seggor welcome your general secretary of the european trade union confederation open society you're facing you always faced a lot of the trade unions challenges on this and obviously the mood can move in a different direction but what's your reflection on this challenge now to an open society well basically we believe that to have an open society you have to have a cohesive society and a cohesive society needs a stop to unemployment and education and integration of the various people who are in a very difficult situation if you look at the roots of the problems you will quickly understand that you know there is a problem with the banlieu in in in france and the way the people are developing but at the same time we believe in an open society because trade union needs to this open society we need to be able to say we disagree even have cartoons to say about the employers what we think even if it is offending them because this is nonviolent it is expressing opinions so i'm a bit afraid of we are not we don't have to be politically correct all the time we have to be able our people have to be able to what to say what they have to say without without being too politically correct but they feel under threat at the moment then yes they do and i think it is very dangerous i think it is very dangerous and what we are doing is trying to on the country to say we need education we need employment we need to give them the possibility to integrate in our society to avoid this this type of reaction let me go to chrystyple if i can um uh you are chair of the global agenda council on the role of faith world here and you speak regularly on the relationship between religion and real politic what's your reflection on what you've been hearing one i'm greatly encouraged this is exactly the kind of conversation we need to have candidly and courteously courteously four quick comments one is open society takes place on a spectrum between liberty and security freedom to something and freedom from something that gets defined differently in historical context and has to be done by society and state together second is context terrible tragedy in paris but took place in the context of almost 2000 in nigeria and 25 000 in pakistan uh let's have equal outrage all the time about this issue on uh the rights and responsibilities i'm the fourth of eight marines over two generations of cycles who have worn a uniform so people could say what they want to say we would die for that and i believe strongly in that but on the other hand there is also a thing that i believe i'll call it maturity that whatever our moral point of departure is we have to exercise maturity and how we and i define maturity is this moving beyond tolerance to respect i don't want to tolerate my neighbor i want to celebrate my neighbor according to the essence of his or her identity last point is this the question is how do you create a ongoing dialogue where trust can take place and i'll give you just one example i co-founded a religious freedom round table in washington and if you've ever seen the movie star wars it's kind of like the first bar scene that you see everybody in that room could not agree on anything politically or theologically but we share a firm and indifatigable commitment to the imperative of freedom of conscience or belief and mutual respect and mutual reliance and that allows us from the bottom up we meet on capitol hill to invite the top down of government into a sort of a track 1.5 ongoing dialogue where trust is built across sectors between public and private top down and bottom up and the social cohesion of this last point begins to result so that you don't have a divided and polarized society thank you i want to go to can i go to mr grand laghan again um can you help us understand i think there's going to be a a session tomorrow between uh with some of your uh counterparts or one former counterpart um from britain tomorrow but something that ken roth raised and as you're inside even though it's foreign intelligence he made the point that actually the the the two who have involved in charlie ebdo were talking on their wives telephones where do you think the principles are now that you've got to violate freedom and free speech in the security services in order to guarantee security and free security of a free society where is that debate going now do you think whether in norway or more broadly among the others you talk to who are your compatriots in other in the same field in other countries as let me just say that i believe that both the national security services and also the foreign intelligence agencies are faced with an extremely difficult task here in trying to prevent the type of incidents that we have seen and i think that highlights very much the balance between security public security national security and the privacy of individuals this is a balance that can only be the balance can only be found by our our our politicians it is up to us in the intelligence agencies to argue why this is important i think a number of what kind of pushback do you get for example from the new government in norway i think i think we have a very good discussion in norway on this issue for the time being and in general i think after the the the the snowden leaks a year and a half ago ago where this was highlighted highlighted very much i think currently and globally there is a far more balanced understanding of this issue and the need to find solutions whereby society can take care of our common interests interests right just before i ask the panellys here let me ask you again what is your assessment as a very senior insider on this about the tolerance of the public now for its freedom to be challenged maybe digitally as much as anything else in order to guarantee security i can only statistically talk about the situation in norway but polls that have been made suggests that the tolerance among the public is pretty high for this most most people will realize that if you don't use the methods that foreign intelligence agencies can use and that security services can use it is going to be very very difficult to prevent incidents like this in the future pass the microphone along but let me what's your reaction i mean here you have the dilemma from a senior insider what's your feeling about this dilemma and where the line is going to be in the future particularly if there's going to be another threat to security whether it be in the developed country i was in poshawa when 147 well i was in pakistan the day that happened and that was a massive shock the worst outrage since 2007 and no one knew it was coming jean yeah no i think that i think that's really challenging i sort of i want to go back to something that you just said about sort of coming background if you had a room full of people a room full of journalists from anywhere in the world from poshawa from kenya from uh rush off anywhere that they would sort of come back to this fundamental principle of respecting freedom of expression and so i think there would be a push back from that community sometimes i'm surprised by the cultures and societies in which they work and again i view them me so many of them as heroes but even in our own country i know that i'm surprised at the welcome and openness to allowing such such um violations of our privacy shake by at the level of tolerance and understanding when you hear a senior professional in the intelligence field reflecting the national security dilemmas when trying to maintain an open society and the maximum security as well i think the intelligence people should be very they have to be truthful and and they have to be because they can they can help us avoid wars they they can they can see things that are coming in the future and and they can prevent so from that point of view i i i respect what they're trying to do and i think it's important to do this this is also yeah it's a big problem but if they do their work with the spirit of trying to prevent these dangers but the most important thing though is the law we we have to have legislate laws that protect the the rights and also you know you know how do we protect religions we're in a globalized world we're all in the same place the internet has made us one culture now how do we protect religions what it doesn't matter any type of religion whether it's the abrahamic the jewish the christian the the the buddhist religion how do how do we protect their their sacredness why can't we put some legislations to protect these religions and if we just leave people to make fun of them that will lead to types of wars we don't want wars if you look at the religious wars of the past we it's horrible what's happened and we're in the danger of having been confronted with new wars thank you just before we wind up and i go to patrick and ken trisha you wanted a quick word behind me uh it's it's become slightly moot and i don't want to keep harking back to charlie ebdo but surely the word that we're all afraid of is extremism and and it is extremism of violence and you know we are using extremism at some point of expression as well and i think the two are really sort of sacrificing the the universally poignant which i think most of us would relate to and i'm so sorry but i couldn't hear what you were saying shake because mine weren't working but i'm just wondering whether this hour's worth of discussion is actually happening in the muslim world i'll come back to you where you able to you have heard this question is that this conversation is happening in the you want me to speak french we can speak french but you don't have the listeners maybe he could translate let me just let me let me let me just get a reflection because we're running out of time ken okay we were never going to resolve this in an hour but have we adequately reflected many of the dilemmas that you see in your chart day by day hour by hour in the human rights watch right people often say we've got to restrict our rights for security that's often the way it's couched and what i want to leave people with is you've got to look at that trade-off very carefully for example the idea that we are going to restrict um you know blasphemy to protect religion if you look at how that plays out in a place like pakistan which has a very active blasphemy law it's always the embattled minority who is imprisoned or sometimes killed um it's never the majority it's applied very selectively if you look at the the mass snooping the mass collection of our metadata when when the nsa was asked give us one terrorist plot that was broken up because of that mass collection of of our metadata they couldn't do it so we have to really question whether these restrictions on our rights supposedly in the name of security are really necessary or whether people are just taking advantage of a security threat to restrict our rights thank you patrick and then i'll come to the shake this this question about an open society and i going back to where i started with you um about whether you fear there will be a sense of constraint if this were to happen again first i don't think we we will agree on a single universal global sense of humor this will not happen so that wasn't the point of discussion though can we have a love after again it goes back to the the danish cartoons it's it's been 10 years i would like to us to get out of that vicious circle i'm tired of that of that thing let's name things it is the it has become a symbol the sticking point is the is the image of the prophet that's that has become a symbol of many other things it is not let's let's put that aside i mean we won't we won't make laws to forbid you know any cartoon about the prophet but we i can say let's put aside muhamman let's not draw that because it has become a symbol on one side as if all of our you know democracies and freedoms and values resided on that single thing i mean the image of the prophet and on the other side it's a symbol of many other things of frustration of of social issues religious issues and it's those symbols are being utilized and i think the crowds and particularly people in the in the islam world need to understand that there is many pollution going on but we need to at some point break the vicious circle all right i'm sorry sheikh bhai i've got to stop it because the next session starts in 10 minutes can i thank you all very much actually in an open society we didn't get many tweets but victoria medina has just tweeted potential rupture and extremism we have to consider our actions have consequences and can boomerang on us can i thank you all very much indeed we're never going to resolve this but at least we've aired it at a critical time and thank you to my panellists