The bloody assault on the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, can only provoke the most profound revulsion. This was a dreadful terrorist atrocity that has claimed the lives of at least 12 innocent people.
针对法国讽刺杂志《查理周刊》(Charlie Hebdo)编辑部的血腥攻击，只能招来最深刻的厌恶。这是一起可怕的恐怖主义暴行，造成了至少12名无辜者丧生。Our first response must be to mourn the victims, four of whom were the magazine’s well-known cartoonists and two of them police officers. But this was more than a human tragedy. It was a calculated act of intimidation, an attack on the freedom of expression that is the pillar of any democratic society. It was designed to seed an insidious form of self-censorship. It must be roundly and defiantly condemned.
我们的第一反应必须是悼念遇难者，其中4人是该刊的著名漫画家，还有2人是警察。但是，这不止是一起人间悲剧，这是一起经过谋划的恐吓行为，是对任何民主社会赖以生存的言论自由的攻击，其目的是播下某种潜意识中自我审查的种子。这必须受到全面和不屈的谴责。
Nearly a decade has passed since a Danish newspaper first attracted the ire of Muslims by publishing cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Mohammed. What started with peaceful protests and consumer boycotts has steadily descended into violence. This is not the first time Charlie Hebdo has been attacked for publishing its own cartoons satirising Islam. Its offices were firebombed three years ago.
自丹麦一家报纸首先刊登讽刺先知穆罕默德的漫画、引起穆斯林的愤怒以来，已经过去了近10年。最初的和平抗议和消费者抵制，已逐渐演变为暴力。这已经不是《查理周刊》第一次因为发表了讽刺伊斯兰教的漫画而受到攻击。该刊编辑部曾在3年前遭到燃烧弹袭击。
But yesterday’s events mark a new and sinister step in the escalating conflict between faith and free expression. The sight of three masked men wielding AK47s in the middle of a European capital, gunning down policemen and stalking the magazine’s offices in search of their victims, will understandably send a chill throughout the western world.
但是，昨日的事件标志着，信仰和言论自由之间不断升级的冲突走出了新的、恶毒的一步。三名蒙面男子在一个欧洲国家首都的街上挥舞AK47突击步枪，射杀警察，在杂志编辑部四处寻找受害者——这一幕会让整个西方世界感受到一股寒意，这是可以理解的。For the security services in France and across Europe, the attack will prompt many questions. It is unclear whether the assailants were on the radar of the French authorities and whether they were assisted by overseas militant groups.
对法国乃至整个欧洲的情报机构而言，此次攻击将引发很多问题。目前还不清楚袭击者是否早已进入法国有关部门的视线，以及他们是否得到境外武装组织的协助。Many of the recent jihadist attacks — in Sydney and Ottawa — have been conducted by “lone wolves”. The concerted nature of Wednesday’s assault — and also the attackers’ flight from the scene rather than resorting to siege and suicide tactics — suggests a less familiar modus operandi.
近期的多起圣战者袭击（在悉尼和渥太华）都是由所谓“孤狼恐怖分子”进行的。周三这起攻击的协同特性——以及袭击者从现场逃离、而不是诉诸于劫持人质和自杀战术——似乎指出了一种人们不太熟悉的手法。In the days ahead many will be watching the impact on French society. At a time of deep political and economic malaise, the anti-immigrant National Front led by Marine Le Pen may profit from a new burst of anti-Islamic feeling. The attack is a challenge to the state authorities who must now find the attackers and bring them to justice. But the broader challenge is for politicians and the public to cleave to France’s core secular values and express defiance without stoking the fires of blind revenge.
在未来几天里，很多人将关注法国社会受到的影响。在该国深陷政治和经济困境之际，以马琳•勒庞(Marine Le Pen)为首的反移民政党“国民阵线”(National Front)，可能受益于一股新的反伊斯兰情绪。此次袭击是对政府有关部门发起的挑战，这些部门现在必须追查袭击者，将他们绳之以法。但更为广义的挑战在于，政治人物和公众要坚守法国的核心世俗价值观，在不挑动盲目复仇之火的前提下表达反抗情绪。In any democratic society, there should always be room for a civilised debate about taste and propriety when it comes to the mockery of any religious faith. But what cannot be challenged is the fundamental right of all citizens to express themselves freely within the law. In an age marked by growth in religious belief and the increasing politicisation of faith, all religion must be open to opinion, analysis and lampoonery.
在涉及到针对任何宗教信仰的讽刺时，任何一个民主社会都应当有文明辩论的空间，让各方就品味和尺度界限各抒己见。但不容挑战的是，所有公民都有在法律范围内自由表达自己的根本权利。在宗教信仰势力壮大、信仰日益政治化的当今时代，所有宗教都必须对观点、分析和讽刺抱有开放心态。In the past quarter century there have been many attempts to use intimidation to silence satire and dissent. The Iranian regime set the precedent when it issued a fatwa against the author Salman Rushdie in response to his book The Satanic Verses. North Korea used cyber violence to prevent the distribution of an unflattering film about its leader Kim Jong Un.
过去四分之一世纪期间，先后有过不少使用恐吓手段压制讽刺和异见的尝试。伊朗政权确立了先例，发出针对作家萨尔曼•拉什迪(Salman Rushdie)的追杀令，就为了他写的小说《撒旦诗篇》(The Satanic Verses)。朝鲜最近使用网络暴力试图阻止一部嘲讽该国领导人金正恩(Kim Jong Un)的电影发行。Now we have the appalling spectacle in Paris. The response of the free world to this must be unwavering. Charlie Hebdo may be a very different publication to our own, but the courage of its journalists — and their right to publish — cannot be placed in doubt. A free press is worth nothing if its practitioners do not feel free to speak.
现在，我们又见证了巴黎街头的骇人景象。自由世界对此的反应必须是坚定不移的。《查理周刊》也许是一份与本报非常不同的出版物，但其采编人员的勇气——以及他们的出版权利——是不容置疑的。如果新闻从业者感觉不到言论自由，新闻自由就没有什么价值了。