Angela Rayner is expected to appoint an “Islamophobia tsar” by the end of this week, to help enforce the Government’s “anti-Muslim hostility” definition — Islamophobia by another name.
As the Free Speech Union warned from the outset, the definition has been used to silence people who criticise, debate or mock Islam. Those targeted include politicians such as Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy, Rupert Lowe and Robert Jenrick, as well as private citizens.
It is a state-approved Islamic blasphemy code.
Islam, like the other religions, is a set of ideas and imperatives. We human subjects must be free to question and criticize and reject any or all of those ideas and imperatives.
Earlier this year, FSU Policy and Research Director David Rose exposed troubling connections between Islamist organisations and all five individuals the Government hand-picked to sit on the working group that drafted the definition.
Now the Government is refusing to say which organisations took part in the consultation that shaped it. Nick Timothy MP submitted a Freedom of Information request and was initially told that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had deleted every submission — in apparent breach of the Government’s own data policy.
The Department later admitted that it does hold the responses, but it still refuses to say which organisations or individuals took part and influenced the definition.
What is the Government covering up? Did Islamists help to create a state-approved blasphemy code? Angela Rayner has serious questions to answer.
What next? Letting the Vatican tell UKnians what they can and can’t say?
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