'Je Suis Charlie' rally planned for Halifax's Grand Parade

Halifax joined cities across the globe holding rallies to honour the victims of last week's terrorist attacks in Paris and support free speech.

The Halifax event was held Sunday afternoon in Grand Parade.

Organizer Alize Barth, a Paris-born woman living in Nova Scotia, asked participants to bring a "Je Suis Charlie" sign or a pencil, which has become a symbol of free speech in the rallies around the world.

She says she grew up seeing the work of the cartoonists that were killed.

"The cartoonist who died, intellectually speaking on a French level, they were monuments. To relate in terms of provoking the public to think they were as big as the Eiffel Tower," Barth said.

"It is so unfair to kill people because of their pencil."

The Halifax rally was the same day of a major unity rally in Paris to mourn the victims, and to denounce terrorism.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney is attending the Paris event on behalf of the federal government.

Seventeen people were killed and several more were critically wounded in the attacks on a satirical newspaper, a kosher supermarket, and on police. The three men responsible for the violence that shook France to its core all died in shootouts with police.