This is what Ian Hislop has to say about the Charlie Hebdo attack

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has released this statement after the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was attack by masked gunmen, leading to the deaths of 12 people.

I am appalled and shocked by this horrific attack - a murderous attack on free speech in the heart of Europe.

I offer my condolences to the families and friends of those killed - the cartoonists, journalists and those who were trying to protect them.

They paid a very high price for exercising their comic liberty.

Very little seems funny today.

Four of France's best known political cartoonists, Jean Cabu, Stephane "Charb" Charbonnier, Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac and Georges Wolinski, all died in today's attack.

Charlie Hebdo's editor-in-chief, Gerard Biard, who was in London at the time of the attack, said: "I don't understand how people can attack a newspaper with heavy weapons. A newspaper is not a weapon of war."

More: [The touching tributes to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting]3

More: [A brief history of Charlie Hebdo]4