Suela Braverman has written an important piece for the Times today in which she points out that, contrary to the impression given by recent events at Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield, it is not actually against the law to drop a copy of the Quran in a school playground.
I have already indicated my deep concern about this case and the way it has been handled, but it raises a number of broader issues.
The education sector and police have a duty to prioritise the physical safety of children over the hurt feelings of adults. Schools answer to pupils and parents. They do not have to answer to self-appointed community activists. I will work with the Department for Education to issue new guidance spelling this out.
Instead, a disturbing video showed a meeting – which looked more like a sharia law trial, inappropriately held at a mosque instead of a neutral setting, whereby the mother of one boy was made to account for his behaviour in front of an all-male crowd.
We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain, and must not be complicit in the attempts to impose them on this country. There is no right not to be offended. There is no legal obligation to be reverent towards any religion. The lodestar of our democracy is freedom of speech. Nobody can demand respect for their belief system, even if it is a religion. People are legally entitled to reject – and to leave – any religion. There is no apostasy law in this country. The act of accusing someone of apostasy or blasphemy is effectively inciting violence upon that person.
Everyone who lives here has to accept this country’s pluralism and freedom of speech and belief. One person’s freedom to, for example, convert from Islam to Christianity is the same freedom that allows a Muslim to say that Jesus was a prophet but not God Incarnate.
This freedom is absolute. It doesn’t vary case by case. It can’t be disapplied at a local level. And no one living in this country can legitimately claim that this doesn’t apply to them because they belong to a different tradition.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Free Speech Union has written to West Yorkshire Police asking it to delete the ‘non-crime hate incidents’ recorded against the names of the four boys in this case. Unlike criminal convictions, NCHIs attached to children’s records are not automatically spent when that child reaches the age of 18. Describing this episode as a ‘hate incident’ and recording that against the boys’ records in such a way that it could show up if someone carried out an enhanced criminal record check is a completely disproportionate response, given that there was no malicious intent, as the school’s headteacher said. You can read that letter here.
Stop Press 2: According to the Mail on Sunday, the 14 year-old autistic boy had to move out of his home last week following arson threats.
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