I have copied and pasted this article from the front page of today's Daily Telegraph. I have written before on the subject of the erosion of our free speech. Tom Harris has written a topical article and the issues he raises are important for the health of our society. It is an absolutely fundamental principle that we are all equal under the law and we must fight for its practical as well as theoretical reality. Clearly we are dancing around Muslim sensitivities and even more worryingly doing so in response to either the implied threat of or on occasions actual violence. Bullies have to be stood up to. They have no special status or special sensitivities that can justify a two tier policing outcome.
Politicians are too cowardly to defend free speech in the face of Islamism
The suspicion that one religious group is treated more leniently than another is corrosive to our national fabric.
Jess Phillips is only the latest in a long line of ministers who probably regrets the relatively quiet news schedule of the festive season.
That’s not to say that her refusal to authorise a national inquiry into the rape gang scandal is not news that is worth reporting. But it’s a story that would have risked being shunted down the news agenda had it occurred outside the holiday period. We should be grateful, therefore, that it has received as much coverage as it has.
At its root, the rape gang scandal excites interest and condemnation because of a sense that Muslims are treated differently from the followers of other religions. The suspicion that the two main parties have colluded in covering up the details of the rape scandal, in which thousands of mostly white, vulnerable girls became the victims, over decades, of gangs of mostly Muslim and Pakistani men, is one frequently dismissed as based on racism and bigotry.
Yet in recent years we have been presented with ample evidence that Islam does receive special treatment, particularly from our police, social workers and politicians. This is no conspiracy theory; it is not founded on bigotry or racism – it is founded on fact.
The obvious example is the case of the Batley Grammar school teacher who in 2021 was forced to go into hiding, along with his family, for his own safety after he showed a class of students some cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.
He did nothing illegal. He did nothing that was remotely wrong from an ethical point of view. He was teaching a class about free speech – ironically – and as a consequence had to flee the scene because of threats from religiously-inspired extremists.
The police response was to call for calm. It should have been to arrest and charge anyone guilty of aggravating the situation, particularly those who made threats of violence against the teacher. Instead it was the teacher who was investigated. He was not considered by the police to be a victim of crime, even though he and his family suffered massive upheaval because of the threats against him.
He remains in hiding to this day.
Take also the case of the 14-year-old schoolboy in West Yorkshire who in 2023 dropped a copy of the Koran on the floor, where it was scuffed. The incident was unimportant. Books get damaged all the time. This one was actually owned by the boy in question and as far as I know, we are still allowed to treat any object that we own in any way we like.
But not as far as the local police were concerned. In what was undoubtedly one of the biggest overreactions ever perpetrated by the boys in blue, a full investigation into the incident – if it can even be called an “incident” – was held and the inevitable “non-crime hate incident” was recorded. The police even hosted a press conference at which a senior officer apologised to “the community” and the school boy’s mother was filmed apologising to members of the same community for the damage, revealing that her son had been left “petrified” by death threats.
A simple question: would the dropping of a copy of the Bible on a dusty dining room floor have provoked a similar reaction? Don’t bother answering: it was a rhetorical question.
Then, most disturbing of all, was the death of Conservative MP David Amess in 2021 at the hands of an Islamist terrorist. It was a repulsive act of violence but it was entirely in line with the principles of Islamism – as distinct from Islam, I hasten to point out – which seeks to create a worldwide “caliphate” under Sharia law and sees non-Muslims as unworthy of human rights.
Yet when the Commons met to pay tribute to one of their own, barely any reference was made to the dire threat of Islamism, a creed that has claimed the lives of nearly 100 innocent UK residents in the last 20 years. Instead, MPs clumsily avoided the issue altogether, focusing instead on the bizarre and irrelevant issue of social media and the need to be more courteous to each other on Twitter.
It was an insult to David and his family, not to mention all the other victims of Islamism here and across the world.
So yes, Islam is regarded in our country in a different light from any other religion. We all know the reason for this but are usually too afraid to say so. So allow me: we’re afraid of violence. When French journalists dared to mock Muhammed on the cover of Charlie Hebdo magazine, gunmen massacred the staff in its Paris offices. A French teacher was beheaded for showing those same cartoons to his class. No wonder the Batley Grammar teacher feared for his life!
The establishment’s capitulation to such clerical bullying goes at least as far back to 1988 when British author Salman Rushdie was condemned to death by the Iranian government for writing a book. In response, intellectuals and politicians fell over themselves not to condemn this appalling act of intimidation and instead sought to reach some sort of compromise with Tehran’s demented religious leaders.
But capitulation hasn’t worked. How many times must we point out that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them before our politicians take note?
No one has the right to threaten anyone who doesn’t show the appropriate amount of respect to their religion: the Church of England found that out in 1979 when Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” was released in the cinemas. And we are a better country for it. Don’t make the mistake of imagining that it is only deep respect for Islam that has prevented any subsequent film director from making “The Life of Mohammed” since then. But in a free, secular, democratic, liberal society, why shouldn’t he?
I was about to ask the question, why can’t our political leaders stand up for the principles of free speech and defend our liberties against any threats of bullying and violence? But again, that would be no more than rhetorical.
