Category Archives: Religious hatred law

Guardian letters on Hirsi Ali and religious hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A couple of interesting letters in the Guardian, from Lord Avebury and Liz Fekete of the IRR, replying to Timothy Garton’s Ash’s article on Dutch right-wing politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the proposed new law against incitement to religious hatred.

Avebury points out that the article “wrongly implies that Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others like her who robustly criticise religious beliefs, customs or sacred objects would be silenced by the racial and religious hatred bill”. Fekete argues that “for ordinary Muslim women, who face daily abuse for wearing the hijab, the ‘thoughtful, calm’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali is more provocateur than liberator”.

Guardian, 7 December 2005

Ian Paisley ‘meek and mild’ – shock revelation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We shouldn’t rewrite the classics to appease religious belief but changing texts is not always wrong.” Stephanie Merritt on the (apparently false) story that the Bristol Old Vic production of Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine the Great” changed the text in order to avoid offending Muslims.

While the article is quite balanced in its treatment of that particular issue, you can’t but be struck by the casually bigoted attitude towards the religious beliefs of minority communities. Thus we are told, yet again, that the extension of the racial hatred laws to cover incitement to religious hatred should be opposed because “belief is a choice, ethnicity is not”. Yeah sure – Muslims don’t need protection against the hate-propaganda of the BNP because they can avoid it by the simple expedient of changing their religion or embracing atheism.

And then we are warned that “an increasing number of religious groups – even meek and mild Christians – now include rogue elements who feel their freely chosen beliefs are not robust enough to withstand criticism or mockery and must be defended by threatening or violent means”.

So, unlike the aggressive religions of minority communities, Christianity is the province of the “meek and mild”. This would be the faith that features George W. Bush and Ian Paisley among its adherents, would it?

Observer, 27 November 2005

Respect conference reports

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Respect rejects call to oppose Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

An amendment calling for opposition to the Bill was defeated. Ifhat Shaheen from Hackney, east London, spoke against the amendment. She said, “As a Muslim woman I face racial abuse every day – but I can’t even call it racial abuse, because as a Muslim I’m not covered by the Race Relations Act. Sikhs and Jewish people are already covered – if they suffer abuse because of their religion, they are protected under the law. So why, when a bill is put forward that will give Muslims the same protection, does it suddenly become an issue of limiting people’s free speech?”

Socialist Worker, 26 November 2005

Respect conference reaffirms commitment to opposing homophobia

While there was one speech arguing that the organisation had not sufficiently highlighted the issue at the general election, there were three others detailing how clear arguments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality were put and won.

Dave Goodfield from Coventry said, “We have just seen the recent appalling murder of a young man, Jody Dobrowski, on Clapham Common.” Dave called for a clear stand against bigotry, wherever it comes from, and rejected the idea that black and Muslim communities are in some way the main source of such attacks.

Delegates were shocked when he read out a quote – “what does a moderate Muslim do, other than excuse the real nutters by adhering to this barmy doctrine?” – and revealed it came not from the far right, but from a gay publication. He told delegates this was an extreme reflection of a “disproportionate focus” by a small number of activists against homophobia on African Caribbeans and Muslims.

Coventry’s amendment was passed unanimously. The overwhelming feeling among delegates was both to campaign against homophobia and also not to allow the issue of lesbian and gay rights to be cynically used as a cover for Islamophobia.

Socialist Worker, 26 November 2005

Why Britain needs a religious hatred law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterWhy Britain needs a religious hatred law

By Murad Qureshi

Morning Star, 21 November 2005

This month anti-racists celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the introduction of the first race relations legislation in Britain.

Among its other provisions, the ground-breaking 1965 Race Relations Act made it an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to stir up racial hatred. However, while the Act marked an important first step in providing legal protection to minority communities from racism, it proved difficult to secure convictions for this particular offence.

In 1968 four members of a far-right organisation calling itself the Racial Preservation Society were prosecuted under the Act after publishing an anti-immigration newsletter in which they warned against “racial mixing” and accused politicians of encouraging “racial levelling.”

Even though the material plainly had the effect of inciting racial hatred, the prosecution was unable to prove that this was what the defendants intended – as was required by the 1965 Act. The defendants claimed that their intention was not to incite hatred but merely to educate the public about the consequences of immigration. As a result, they were acquitted.

In his inquiry into the death of Kevin Gately at an anti-fascist protest in London’s Red Lion Square in 1974, Lord Scarman argued that the racial hatred law needed “radical amendment to make it an effective sanction, particularly in relation to its formulation of the intent to be proved before an offence can be established.”

Subsequent legislation amended the law along the lines proposed by Lord Scarman. Part 3 of the 1986 Public Order Act improves on the original 1965 law by criminalising words and actions that have, or are likely to have, the objective effect of stirring up racial hatred. The 1986 Act allows the defence that the incitement of hatred was not intended, but, rather than the prosecution being required to prove intent, the onus is now on the defendant to demonstrate the absence of intent.

This is hardly a draconian law and, under the 1986 Act, it is still far from easy to mount a successful prosecution for inciting racial hatred. Earlier this year, the Attorney-General stated that, since 1987, when the Act came into force, only 65 people had been prosecuted for inciting racial hatred, resulting in 44 convictions. Indeed, the Commission for Racial Equality has complained that “the evidential test under the Public Order Act is extremely difficult to satisfy.”

A more fundamental weakness in the existing legislation, however, is that Jews and Sikhs are protected against incitement to racial hatred as members of monoethnic religions while multi-ethnic faith groups such as Muslims and Hindus are not.

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Liberals rally against religious hatred bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Free ExpressionIn excerpts from a forthcoming book entitled ‘Free Expression is No Offence’, Philip Pullman, Monica Ali, Philip Hensher and Salman Rushdie consider the threat to free speech contained in the government’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

Frankly, it’s a lot of pretentious waffle, interspersed with ignorant remarks.

Guardian, 19 November 2005

“If you choose to stop being a Muslim, you are an apostate and, depending on where you live, liable to severe punishment, which might include the death penalty. So being a Muslim is partly a matter of choice and partly one of coercion.” (I must hurry and warn a Muslim friend of mine, who is considering converting to Christianity.)

“Hate-speech laws in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands have not resulted in a decrease in insults directed towards Jews, Muslims, Turks, African immigrants or other minorities. In fact there has been growth in support for the extreme right in those countries.” (If this is an argument against introducing a religious hatred law, it’s equally an argument in favour of abolishing the existing racial hatred laws. Is that what is being proposed?)

“… a cynical vote-getting attempt to placate British Muslim spokesmen, in whose eyes just about any critique of Islam is offensive…. New Labour is playing with the fire of communal politics, and in consequence we may all be burned.” (Oh piss off, Salman.)

Fascists take advantage of loophole in racial hatred law again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“We are all now only too familiar with the despicable practice of Muslim gangs preying on white schoolgirls in Keighley for purposes of ‘grooming’. A process leading to a life of prostitution, drug addiction and degradation for the unfortunate girls concerned. We are also equally aware of how this matter is being played down and minimalized by officialdom, purely to ‘preserve good community relations’.

“So why do Muslim gangs seek out white and/or Christian, rather than Muslim, girls to pimp and exploit? Although we know this is a question that the Muslim Council of Great Britain could answer by quoting extensively from Koranic verse, we are not naïve enough to believe that they will so do. This being yet another question about their ‘religion of peace’ they cannot, or perhaps more accurately, dare not answer.”

BNP news article, 17 November 2005

‘Muslims are an ethnic group’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

So Alasdair Palmer claims in the Spectator, 5 November 2005

He refers to the 1983 Mandla vs Dowell Lee case, which provides the basis for Sikhs being recognised as an ethnic group entitled to protection against racial hatred under the 1986 Public Order Act. Palmer declares that on the basis of the same legal ruling “the existing legislation covers Muslims in exactly the same way that it covers Christians, Jews and Sikhs”, so the government’s argument that the racial hatred laws protect members of mono-ethnic faith groups but not those of multi-ethnic faiths is “entirely spurious”.

For the reasons why Muslims are not covered by the law against incitement to racial hatred, see here. Or for Lord Fraser’s ruling in Mandla vs Dowell Lee see here. It will be noted that, among Fraser’s criteria for qualification as a distinct ethnic group, Muslims lack a common geographical origin, descent from a small number of common ancestors or a common language.

Update:  See the reply by Sher Khan of the MCB in the Spectator, 12 November 2005

Lords defeat for religious hatred bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainA new clash between the House of Lords and the Commons looks increasingly likely after peers voted overwhelmingly last night to amend the planned law against religious hatred to introduce safeguards protecting freedom of speech.

Although ministers indicated that they were prepared to compromise on aspects of the controversial proposals, the government appeared determined to reverse at least some elements of the Lords vote.

During a committee stage debate yesterday the Lords backed an all-party amendment substantially restricting the grounds on which the law could be applied. The government defeat, by 260 votes to 111, toughens the bill so that prosecutors must prove intent to cause religious hatred.

The amendment, which was sponsored by Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers as well as the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, also tightens up the definition of language needed to bring a prosecution. This is now restricted to “threatening” rather than “insulting and abusive” language.

Guardian, 26 October 2005

In other words, if their lordships’ amendment were accepted, material such as the BNP leaflet referred to below would probably still not be liable to prosecution because it restricts itself to inciting hatred against Muslims by means of abuse and insults, rather than through explicit threats of violence. The present disparity between the legal protection provided to Jews and Sikhs against incitement to hatred, and the much weaker protection provided to Muslims and Hindus, would remain.