In the wake of what happened in Paris condemned by all right thinking Islamic organisations the world over, the question that seems to be avoided by most commentators and asked by most of us is ' Is freedom of speech or expression interchangeable with the freedom to offend?'

The satirists of Charlie Hebdu were of this view, particularly the editor Stephane Charbonnier revelled in attacking everything and anything. Nothing to him was out of bounds and beyond ridicule and parody.

Freedom of speech is what he felt underpins the civilised nations and those perceived not to be.

His magazine and its contributors were testament to this and the flag bearers for 'freedom of speech'.

Nothing was going to stop them satirising whatever target they felt was deserving of their particular brand of freedom of expression.

Everything was fair game, Catholicism, Judaism and more importantly Islam.

However the lines of criticising and offending has obviously got blurred along the way and a number of people within the Islamic faith have took umbrage against this 'perceived criticism' of their religion particularly when lampooning images of the person Muslims hold in the highest esteem. The best of the best . The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The Islamic faith and its adherents devotion to their Prophet is unlike other religions.

Every single follower is encouraged to follow the teachings and actions of the prophet in every minute of their life. The 'sunnah' and the Quran are the main fundamentals that predicate the doctrine.

The satirical magazine in this weeks edition depicted a picture of the prophet with a clowns' red nose and denied despite publishing something that is seen as provocative akin to a red rag to a bull to most Muslims that it was being anything but.

The offices were already firebombed in 2011 in their defiance of free speech and expression to publish the Danish cartoons of the Prophet. A year later they printed the cartoons again as a deliberate provocative gesture to the Arab Spring protests taking place in the Middle East.

The following year they had published a booklet caricaturing the prophet as a naked baby pushed in a wheelchair.

Charbonnier in the notes stated that these images were halal as Muslims had worked on them and factually correct as they had been derived from the Quran.

Charbonnier stated in defending the magazine ' It is like saying a woman who has been raped is to blame because she wore a miniskirt. We are 'provocateurs' we are wearing a miniskirt but who is guilty? The person in the miniskirt or the rapist?'

The magazine obviously felt there was no distinction in expression and offence and its modus operandi was to push this to its limits, to the nth.

Particularly as the Islamic thread always attracted the most publicity and the more they got attacked the more recalcitrant they became in publishing anything against the faith, headlining the magazine with a slur to the religion or making the Prophet the guest editor.

Charbonnier once famously said, "I'd prefer to die than live like a rat'. He also declared, in the face of animosity from extremists, 'I live under French law, not Quranic law'.

His last cartoon was foreboding... Could be said to be prophetic even, the depiction of a jihadist carrying the words 'still no attacks in France, we have until the end of Jan to present wishes'. Unfortunately for him and eleven others the very said was granted.