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svgadminsvgJanuary 11, 2015svgNews

In Jerusalem, and Worldwide: Solidarity Rallies with France

Tens of thousands of people rallied worldwide in solidarity with France on Sunday, with marchers across Europe and the Middle East chanting “Je suis Charlie” and holding pens in the air.

From Jerusalem to London and Berlin to Beirut, crowds waved French flags and sang the anthem La Marseillaise following the Islamist attacks that killed 17 people.

Christians, Muslims and Jews alike took part in the rallies, held as around 2.5 million people took to the streets in unity marches in France.

In Israel, where four French Jews killed in a Paris supermarket attack will be buried, more than 500 people gathered in Jerusalem in front of a screen reading in French “Jerusalem is Charlie”.

“This is an attack on all of us – on the Jewish people, on freedom of media and expression,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said. Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said a prayer for all 17 victims.

Dozens of Palestinian Arabs also held a rally in Ramallah, waving PLO and French flags and holding up banners reading “Palestine stands with France against terrorism” – presumably after being told to do so by Mahmoud Abbas’s government.

In Europe one of the biggest rallies was in Berlin where 18,000 people marched wearing t-shirts saying “Checkpoint Charlie Hebdo” – a reference to the Cold War-era Checkpoint Charlie in the once-divided German city.

The march comes days after Germany’s new anti-Islamic Pegida movement drew 35,000 into the streets of Dresden.

20,000 march in Brussles

At least 20,000 people marched through the Belgian capital Brussels on Sunday in one of the biggest marches outside France in solidarity with the Paris terror attacks, officials said.

A huge “Brussels is Charlie” electronic sign in French, Flemish and English stood atop a city centre building as the march kicked off at about the same time as a massive rally in Paris, AFP reporters said.

People at the head of the march held banners saying “United against hate” and “Freedom of speech” and several young people draped themselves in the French flag.

The march was largely silent, with strains of French national anthem La Marseillaise ringing out.

Representatives from Muslim and Jewish associations took part in the rally.

Top Belgian cartoonist Philippe Gelluck also attended to show support for murdered colleagues from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

“We have to fight on, like our parents and grandparents did, against religious fascism. I will continue more than ever, in honour of my fallen friends, and the idea of freedom,” he said.

“I know the Muslim community feels wounded and humiliated by these cartoons, but they were not taking aim at Islam but at fundamentalism.”

The European Union, which is based in Brussels, has meanwhile sent its top three officials to the march in Paris.

Gunmen killed 12 people in an attack on the magazine, which printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that infuriated some Muslims. A third gunman killed a policewoman and four people at a Paris kosher supermarket.

Elsewhere in Europe

London’s famed Trafalgar Square was filled with around 2,000 people raising pencils to the sky. One person held up a giant paper heart with the message “I Am A British Muslim”. Scores of people also rallied in the university city of Oxford.

“I hope that now, in these terrible circumstances, everyone will learn to live together, as in societies like England,” Romain Abjean, a French teacher who has lived in Britain for ten years, told AFP.

In Madrid’s Plaza de Sol, hundreds descended on the streets with red, white and blue French flags, and sang the French national anthem.

Hundreds of Muslims also gathered at Madrid’s Atocha station, scene of Spain’s worst terror attack, the March 11, 2004 train bombings when Al-Qaeda-inspired bombers killed 191 people.

Veiled women with young children joined groups of young men at the rally, holding up signs that read “I am Muslim and I am not a terrorist”.

“We don’t want killings carried out in the name of Islam,” said Driss Bouzdoudou, 30, who has lived in Spain for 14 years.

Elsewhere in Europe, 12,000 people rallied in Vienna and about 3,000 people turned out in driving snow in Stockholm, while some 2,000 people marched in Dublin.

Luxembourg’s Grand Duchess Maria Teresa took the rare public step of joining some 2,000 people who rallied outside the French embassy in Luxembourg in a show of solidarity.

A minute of silence was followed by the singing of the Marseillaise and the Luxembourg national anthem and the EU anthem “Ode to Joy”.

In Italy, about 1,000 people gathered in Rome and the same number in Milan, while about 200 people took part in Lisbon.

Middle East, Australia and Japan

Meanwhile hundreds of people marched through central Istanbul brandishing pens and flowers, ending up on the steps of the French consulate, and a similar rally took place in Ankara.

But ealier in Istanbul, police arrested two passers-by who shouted “why are you demostrating for this magazine which insulted the prophet?”.

In Beirut, hundreds of Lebanese and French expats held up “Je suis Charlie” signs and pens.

Symbolically, the protesters gathered at Samir Kassir Square, named after an outspoken French-Lebanese journalist who was murdered in 2005. One protester carried a poster aimed at expressing solidarity not only with France, but also with the suffering of millions of Syrians, whose country has been ravaged by war since 2011. “Je suis Charlie, je suis syrien,” read his poster.

Hours before the Paris march, hundreds of people linked arms and held “Je suis Charlie” signs in Australia’s Sydney just meters from the scene of a deadly cafe siege last month.

In Tokyo, more than 150 French and Japanese nationals gathered at a French language and culture institute and held a one-minute silent prayer.

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