When Writing Can Make You a Target: Writers, Journalists and Thinkers Threatened by Islamism in Europe
There is something deeply disturbing about a 21st-century European democracy: a writer may need police protection for writing a book; a cartoonist may become a terrorist target for drawing a caricature; a teacher may be murdered for showing images in class.
And here an uncomfortable question arises: What happens when a religious idea attempts to dictate what can be published, drawn, taught or said under the threat of violence?
We are not talking about European Muslims in general. We are talking about radical Islamism and jihadist violence, and a much broader issue: freedom of expression versus those who seek to impose limits through threats.
Europe has been living with this tension for decades. And some of the names that embody it have already become part of our collective memory.
Salman Rushdie: The Man Who Turned a Book into a Death Sentence
Let us begin with someone who, although he was attacked in the United States, perhaps best symbolises the problem in Europe.
Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988. The following year, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him and called for his death.
Rushdie spent years living under protection. But the story did not end there.
In August 2022, more than three decades after that fatwa, he was stabbed during a literary event in New York. He survived, although he suffered extremely serious injuries.
Rushdie’s case demonstrates something important: a threat against a writer can survive for decades.
It also shows how the boundary between religious conflict and political violence can disappear when a religious authority believes it has the right to decide who deserves to live because of what they have written.
But Rushdie was not the first, nor would he be the last.
Theo van Gogh: When a Film Ends in Murder
In November 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam.
His offence?
He had made Submission, a film critical of the treatment of women under certain interpretations of Islam.
The film had been written in collaboration with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who subsequently received threats and had to live under protection.
Van Gogh was shot and stabbed by an Islamist extremist.
Here we see a pattern that would recur: first comes controversy, then threats, and finally violence.
It does not always happen this way. But when it does, the message is terrifying:
“You can think whatever you want, as long as you do not say it.”
And that is precisely the opposite of an open society.
Jyllands-Posten: Twelve Cartoons That Caused a Global Earthquake
In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons of Muhammad.
The images sparked enormous international controversy. But the story did not end with a debate about religion, respect or bad taste.
Some of the cartoonists received threats and needed protection. Among them was Kurt Westergaard, the creator of the cartoon depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.
Westergaard survived several attempted attacks.
In 2010, an armed man carrying an axe broke into his home intending to kill him. The cartoonist managed to take refuge in a security room.
Westergaard died of natural causes in 2021.
But for years, he lived with a reality that is difficult to imagine: he had drawn a cartoon, and that cartoon had made his own home a potentially dangerous place.
Charlie Hebdo: When the Pencil Meets the Rifle
And then came 7 January 2015.
Two armed men stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. They killed 12 people.
The victims included journalists, cartoonists and contributors to the magazine. The terrorists’ stated motive was linked to the cartoons of Muhammad.
The Kouachi brothers claimed to be acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Europe was shocked. Millions of people took to the streets.
A slogan emerged that would become a global symbol: Je suis Charlie.
But behind the slogan lay a much simpler question:
Can a person publish something offensive to a religion without being murdered for it?
In a liberal democracy, the answer should be yes.
We can debate whether a cartoon is clever, stupid, provocative, offensive or in poor taste. What we cannot accept is death as the punishment for publishing it.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo became one of the most important symbols of the confrontation between freedom of expression and jihadist terrorism in Europe.
Lars Vilks: The Cartoonist Who Needed Protection for a Drawing
Another name worth remembering is Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
In 2007, he published a cartoon depicting Muhammad in a way that provoked intense controversy.
Threats arrived quickly. Al-Qaeda in Iraq even offered a reward for his death. Vilks began living under police protection.
In 2015, he was targeted again during the Copenhagen attacks.
The attacker opened fire at an event on freedom of expression in which Vilks was participating. Danish filmmaker Finn Nørgaard was murdered.
The terrorist subsequently attacked a synagogue and killed its security guard, Dan Uzan. Vilks survived.
But the scene is difficult to forget: a cartoonist protected by police because someone believes that a drawing deserves a bullet.
Samuel Paty: The Case That Should Particularly Shock Europe
And then there is the case of Samuel Paty.
Paty was not a famous writer. He was not a journalist. He was not a professional provocateur. He was a teacher.
In October 2020, he showed his pupils cartoons of Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of expression. Some parents protested.
A campaign against him began on social media. His name and personal details circulated. Eventually, he was murdered and beheaded by a young Islamist near his school.
This case should make us reflect particularly deeply. The victim was no longer a cartoonist who had deliberately chosen to provoke.
He was a teacher explaining one of the fundamental principles of democracy in a classroom: freedom of expression.
The terrorist message had now become much broader: you can be targeted not only for drawing a picture, but also for showing one.
The Target Has Gradually Expanded
And this is perhaps the most worrying part.
For a long time, the problem appeared to be limited to certain people: writers considered blasphemous, satirical cartoonists, journalists, filmmakers and critical intellectuals.
But the Samuel Paty case showed that the circle could widen. You no longer had to be famous. You no longer needed to have published a book.
Teaching, reproducing or defending an idea considered offensive could be enough. And this development matters, because a free society works in precisely the opposite way.
We do not need to agree with an idea to allow it to exist.
Does This Mean All Muslims Are a Threat?
Of course not. And it is important to state that clearly.
The millions of Muslims living in Europe cannot be held responsible for crimes committed by Islamist terrorists.
Practising a religion is one thing.
Defending a political ideology that seeks to organise society according to a religious interpretation is another. Using terrorist violence to impose that ideology is something else entirely.
Precisely for this reason, if we want to discuss the problem seriously, we must be able to make a distinction.
Criticising Islamism does not mean hating Muslims.
And defending Muslims against discrimination does not mean accepting that religion should be exempt from criticism. Both positions can coexist.
Europe Has an Uncomfortable Problem: Self-Censorship
Here we encounter an issue far less visible than terrorist attacks: self-censorship.
It does not take the murder of a hundred writers to change the behaviour of thousands. It is enough for some of them to know that they could become targets.
Imagine a journalist who wants to investigate an Islamist organisation.
They think: “Will I be threatened?”
A cartoonist wants to draw a caricature.
They think: “Is it worth it?”
A teacher wants to discuss the cartoons of Muhammad.
They think: “What if someone exposes my personal details?”
A writer wants to publish a novel criticising certain aspects of Islam.
They think: “Will I need a bodyguard?”
This is what we might call the veto of fear.
The terrorist does not need to be present. It is enough for them to be inside the creator’s mind.
Terrorism Can Ban Every Book
This is one of the most interesting paradoxes. An authoritarian regime can ban books. A terrorist group can try to achieve something similar. How?
Through intimidation.
“You can publish it.”
“But you may have to pay a price.”
And that transforms freedom of expression.
Formally, it still exists. But in practice, some people begin to think: “Better not.”
And that “better not” is precisely what a democracy should prevent.
Europe Cannot Respond with Fear
The answer cannot be to ban all criticism of a religion to avoid conflict. That would establish an extremely dangerous precedent.
Because if a religion receives special protection from criticism because of the threat of violence, what happens next?
What if another ideology demands the same treatment tomorrow? What if a political group declares certain cartoons intolerable? What if a sect threatens a journalist?
Freedom of expression cannot depend on who shouts the loudest, much less on who has the greatest capacity for violence.
Freedom of Expression Does Not Have to Be Polite
This is something Europe seems to forget from time to time.
Freedom of expression does not protect only polite opinions. It also protects uncomfortable opinions, provocative opinions, irreverent opinions, unpleasant opinions and opinions that make us angry.
Naturally, legal limits exist: threats, direct incitement to violence and certain criminal offences do not become legal simply because someone presents them as “opinion”.
But causing offence is not the same as committing violence. A mature democracy should be able to withstand a cartoon, a book, a film or an article that people find offensive.
Because if it cannot, the problem is no longer the cartoonist. It is the fragility of society.
And the Problem Still Exists
We might think all this belongs to the past. It does not.
The latest Europol report published in 2026 states that jihadism remains the leading form of terrorism in the European Union: in 2025, 24 attacks attributed to this current were recorded, alongside 347 arrests related to jihadist terrorism offences.
Europol also highlights the growing role of digital ecosystems, online radicalisation and individual actors or small groups capable of acting without a large organisation behind them.
This does not mean that Europe is constantly on the brink of a terrorist attack.
It means something more specific: the problem has not disappeared, nor has the debate about where to draw the boundaries of an open society.
The Real Objective: To Keep Writing
Perhaps the best way to remember Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, the journalists and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, Kurt Westergaard, Lars Vilks and Samuel Paty is not simply to turn them into a list of victims.
It is to understand what they defended: the ability to think, to write, to draw, to investigate, to teach and, above all, to make mistakes.
Because a democracy is not demonstrated by allowing only the opinions that please the majority. It is demonstrated when it can also protect opinions that deeply offend someone.
Europe can and must debate Islam, Islamism, immigration, integration, religion, secularism, the veil, mosques and radicalisation.
It must do so with arguments, evidence and respect for people, but without guns on the table.
Today, many publishers, media outlets and creators think twice before publishing a hard-hitting article, a critical essay or a humorous cartoon. Fear of violent reprisals or, at the opposite extreme, of being labelled “Islamophobic” by institutional political correctness is creating a cordon of silence.
“Respect for religion has become a code phrase meaning fear of religion,” Salman Rushdie perceptively warned after the Paris attacks.
This is a freedom issue.