7 July 2004

It is little short of astounding that, on the very day that Home Secretary David Blunkett refuses to do anything other than ‘monitor’ the visit to Britain of the Muslim extremist Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who has expressed violent Jew-hatred and support for human bombs, Blunkett brings forward proposals for a second time to foist upon us a new law that will almost certainly criminalise any criticism of Islam, Muslims or any other religion.

Blunkett claims that the new law would not do this but would merely prevent incitement to religious hatred, like the law against incitement to racial hatred. But there is a big difference between the two.

Racial hatred, after all, is directed against people who have no option but to be what they are. Racial hatred is therefore an attack upon people as people, clear and unambiguous. Religion, by contrast, is a principal site of impassioned argument and disputation. What it stands for is intrinsically controversial and lends itself almost by definition to giving offence to others. The scope for claims that perfectly legitimate criticism of religious doctrines or representatives of a faith are unlawful would be immense and would almost certainly criminalise certain points of view.

Of course innocent British Muslims should be protected from attack. But there are already laws to prevent physical attacks on them, as on anyone else. And the religious hatred law is unlikely to prevent actual conduct that threatens them. It will instead criminalise the wrong kind of opinion.

Specifically, it is designed as a sop to those in the Muslim community who have been conducting a relentless campaign against anyone who even so much as mentions the word ‘Islamic’ in connection with extremism or terror by vilifying them as ‘Islamophobic’. And I should know, since I am regularly targeted — along with getting on for just about every journalist who has ever written about the jihad against the west or about the troubled business of Muslim integration — for precisely this kind of crude attempt at intimidation.

Just look at what happened when Baroness Thatcher criticised Muslim clerics for not speaking out loudly enough against the American atrocities. The editor of Muslim News demanded that her ‘case’ be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. He was backed by appeasenik goons such as Lord Heseltine, who accused her of fomenting prejudice against Muslims, and Saddam-lover George Galloway MP who said if the law against incitement to religious hatred had been in place, he would have insisted on her prosecution.

When the Blunkett proposal first surfaced three years ago, comedians such as Rowan Atkinson expressed concern that they could be sent to jail for poking fun at religion and lampooning religious figures. What about the crucifixion gags in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, for example; or the skit in Not the Nine O’Clock News, where worshippers in a mosque bowed to the ground while a voiceover intoned: ‘And the search goes on for the Ayatollah Khomenei’s contact lens’? As the chairman of the Liverpool Islamic Institute said, the real targets of the religious hatred law would be the ‘mockery and ridicule’ of religion.

Such a perceived insult was the reason Salman Rushdie was condemned to death for writing The Satanic Verses, the reason Muslims wanted the book banned and the reason they wanted the law of blasphemy extended from protecting Christianity to Islam. Blunkett’s religious hatred offence would represent precisely such an extension of the blasphemy law (which should be abolished) by the back door. It would not only deliver a final victory to the enemies of Rushdie’s life and liberty, but also to those who threatened or committed violence against the book’s translators and dealers. In short, it would be a victory for terror, not a blow against it.

If anyone doubts this, just look at the reaction to the mounting protests at the Al-Qaradawi visit by the ‘moderate’ Muslim Council of Britain:

‘But the Muslim Association of Britain, which is hosting Dr Al-Qaradawi, regards him as a moderating voice. Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, echoed this view. He said: “Dr Al-Qaradawi is deeply respected by millions of Muslims around the world. He has been a consistent opponent of the extremism espoused by al-Qaeda and similar groups, and has regularly denounced the killing of innocent people in the 11 September attacks.” '

Now look at a small part of what the Foreign Office was told about al Qaradawi:

‘Qaradawi sits on the Shariah [Islamic Law] Board of al-Taqwa Bank and is one of the bank’s largest shareholders . Al-Taqwa Bank was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and its assets frozen, by the U.S. government on 7 November 2001 due to its alleged involvement in al-Qaeda fundraising. Qaradawi is also the Chairman of the 101 Days Charity Coalition, a Palestinian fundraising venture that the Palestinian Authority has named as “one of the supporters – in terms of money and provisions – of the Hamas movement”. As a consequence of his alleged support for terrorism, Qaradawi has been banned from entering the United States since November 1999. Despite this, Qaradawi is a frequent visitor to the UK, often at the invitation of the Muslim Association of Britain…

‘Qaradawi uses his position of religious authority to give theological sanction to Palestinian suicide bombings. He frequently uses his position to support, justify and encourage Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. While other, more moderate Imams have condemned the killing of Israeli civilians, Qaradawi insists that they are justified and has issued religious fatwas that Palestinian terrorist groups use to claim that their suicide bombings have theological justification…

‘Qaradawi does not limit his incitement at calls for violence in Israel; his sermons often call for Jews themselves to be killed. These are often accompanied by calls for “crusaders” – a code for the Christian West – and “infidels” – all non-Muslims – to suffer the same fate. Al-Qaradawi says: ‘In fact, there is hardly any fundamental difference between Judaism and Zionism.’ He says that the Torah permits Jews to spill the blood of others and to seize their money and land and that ‘with the exception of a few honourable ones, the majority of Jews support Israel’s policies.’”

The fact is that the British prosecuting authorities are too terrified to use the law that already exists criminalising incitement to hatred. Five men who were arrested a few years ago for allegedly distributing anti-Jewish literature in the ultra-orthodox area of London’s Stamford Hill were freed after the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to proceed with charges of racial hatred. The police were reported as saying the charges were dropped because the material was targeted ‘only’ at a localised Jewish community, with no likelihood of civil unrest. So much for the desire to stop incitement to hatred against Jews.

Yet now look at Blunkett’s attitude towards Christians. In the Commons today, he said:

‘We need to be able to take on those extremists and say, I’m afraid in our society, pluralism and openness, the ability to accept differences without being subsumed, is crucial to our survival, it’s what distinguishes all of us, from every faith, from those who would take our lives because they reject our faith, and it applies equally from far right evangelical Christians, to extremists in the Islamic faith.’

Astonishingly, he appeared to be equating Islamist extremism with evangelical Christianity! Where are the evangelical Christians who would ‘take our lives because they reject our faith’, for heaven’s sake? The new law would trap Christians and those of other faiths and none for saying things which others may find insulting, while the government continues to turn a blind eye to the actual incitement and links to terrorism that have turned London into ‘Londonistan’. Just what kind of inverted thinking is going on here? Whose side is David Blunkett on?