Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Gėrard Biard and film critic Jean-Baptiste Thoret urged other publications to push the bounds of free expression Friday, days after a top cartoonist at the satirical magazine said he won't draw more Muhammad cartoons.

The magazine, famous for bold caricatures of Islam's central figure even before its Paris office was raided in January by fanatical Muslim brothers who killed 12 people, is working to define its future after losing eight staff members and becoming a global brand.

“We were a little magazine,” Biard said at a press freedom event in the nation's capital. “In half an hour we became a world symbol. It’s pretty hard to deal with it.”

Biard said he understood the headline-grabbing pivot of cartoonist Renald Luzier, known as Luz, as a desire to branch out artistically, but said it may also be a personal decision to avoid further problems.

"It's not my point of view," he said, clarifying he has no inclination to soften the publication's satirical offerings.

Luz, who was late to work on the day of the killings, saw the bodies of his colleagues and afterward drew a cartoon of the scene the magazine did not publish, the editor said.

“He drew what he saw entering,” Biard said. “And he saw a bunch of asses and he drew asses. It was an image he couldn’t wipe out.”

Thoret said his colleague’s decision “is not him saying, ‘You won, finally’” to terrorists.​ Rather, he said, it’s natural for Luz to explore other artistic subjects, also noting his life “has brutally changed” and he’s now a de facto prisoner with constant armed protection.

The film critic said it's important for journalists and ordinary citizens not to self-censor and, staking an absolutist position​, said: "We don't negotiate. There's either freedom of speech or there is not."

But Biard said the magazine, which printed nearly 8 million copies of its first post-massacre edition – up from its usual 60,000 – cannot continue its bold exercise of free expression alone, and warned Western journalists they risk emboldening jihadis by avoiding sensitive topics, such as depicting Muhammad, and marginalizing those who do.

Many publications, he said, “turned their back” on Charlie Hebdo by questioning the appropriateness of pillorying religious fanatics.

“The press suffer a lack of courage in this matter,” he said. “We don’t want to be a symbol any longer. … We can’t be the only ones to stand up for these values.”

Biard pushed back on commentary that the magazine, which more commonly runs cartoons about French and European politics, was attacking Muslim communities by depicting Muhammad.

The cartoons had “quite nothing to do with religion,” he said, but rather target political Islam. Islamists, he said, “are not weak people, they’re powerful, they run states.”

Security personnel were not visible at the event, hosted by Freedom House on the 11th floor of an office building in downtown Washington, D.C. The floor, however, was not accessible via elevator without assistance from building workers.

Editorial Cartoons About the Charlie Hebdo Murders View All 26 Images

Audience questions were pre-screened by a moderator, and Biard gave an apologetic shrug as he was whisked away by organizers shortly after the event ended and before he could answer English-language press questions.

Thoret said he did not personally feel more secure in the U.S., despite the lack of visible security personnel.