Four cartoonists and the Editor-in-chief of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in an attack after gunmen stormed their offices yesterday.

There is not a more exciting working place than a newspaper’s morning team conference. The terrorists who killed Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists wanted to kill this temple of free speech.

This attack on free speech is an attack of freedom itself! In an age when Cultural Diplomacy is the key to the world’s problems, violence is being meted out brutally and often indiscriminately.

In this case, however, the journalists were specifically targeted and executed in cold blood.

Cabu, Charb, Wolinsky, Tignous and Maris, like hundreds of French journalists, were fighters for free speech. They stood against all compromises to preserve media freedom!

Should France put their journalists in an armored bunker! If France can do it, what is the answer for the thousands of journalists around the world? Who will protect them?

We cannot armor our editors; we cannot armor our editorial offices; but we can practice Cultural Diplomacy to build bridges between cultures for a mutual understanding. It is the only answer to violence.

Cabu and Charb, emblematic figures of Charlie Hebdo was killed by terrorists Jan 7 in the Paris morning conference.