Police Force Tells Officers to Log Anti-Islam Conversations

South Wales Police has told officers to log anything that goes beyond “legitimate” discussion of Islam and is deemed “hostility” towards Muslims. The Telegraph has the story.

A police force has been accused of threatening free speech after telling officers to record instances of “hostility” towards Muslims.

South Wales Police has instructed staff to log anything that goes beyond “legitimate” discussion of Islam.

Campaigners fear this subjective definition gives officers the power to decide what is acceptable behaviour and could have a “chilling effect” on free speech.

They argue that if an officer decides someone has crossed the line in a conversation about Islam or Muslims, they will create a record of an anti-social behaviour incident, which would then be disclosed if the person who said it was vetted by an employer.

The Free Speech Union has written to the force demanding it withdraw its guidance to staff, with the campaign group warning that it will seek a judicial review of the matter if it refuses to back down.

Lord Young, the union founder, said the force risked “penalising people for expressing misgivings about Islam”, contrary to free speech protections enshrined in law.

The Telegraph previously revealed that the chairman of an independent police scrutiny panel was removed after insisting that West Yorkshire Police addressed the “elephant in the room” of Islamist extremism following a terrorist attack on a synagogue.

In March, the Government announced a non-statutory definition of “anti-Muslim hostility” after abandoning attempts to define Islamophobia because of criticism that it would have constituted a blasphemy law.

The Government’s broad definition includes “the prejudicial stereotyping of Muslims, or people perceived to be Muslim… and treating them as a collective group defined by fixed and negative characteristics, with the intention of encouraging hatred against them, irrespective of their actual opinions, beliefs or actions as individuals”.

Importantly, the Government’s definition includes safeguards that protect the right to free speech, including criticising or ridiculing Islam.

South Wales Police’s interpretation of the Government’s definition adds a phrase that opponents say could affect people’s chances of getting a job.

In the letter to South Wales Police, the Free Speech Union’s lawyers argue: “The memo issued by South Wales Police gives rise to an unjustified chilling effect on lawful expression and belief.

“Individuals are deterred from expressing religious, philosophical or political views, or from manifesting their beliefs, by the knowledge that doing so may result in police categorisation and recording as an instance of hostility notwithstanding the absence of any criminal conduct.”

The force has told staff that the definition of anti-Muslim hostility is not intended to limit “legitimate discussion, scrutiny or differing viewpoints”.

It also says that conduct falling within the scope of the definition is to be taken seriously and “recorded appropriately”.

The union argues in a letter sent to South Wales Police that individual officers should not be left to decide what is “legitimate” and that the guidance creates “an unacceptable risk of unlawful interference with protected rights”.

The European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to freedom of expression, including expression which may offend, shock or disturb.

It also protects freedom of thought, conscience and belief, including the right to hold and manifest religious or philosophical beliefs which may be critical of, or incompatible with, the doctrines or practices of other faiths.

But the police’s interpretation of anti-Muslim hostility means that “individuals are left unable to predict whether their lawful speech or beliefs will attract police recording, or how any resulting record may be used, retained, or relied upon”, the letter says.

Several other forces are understood to have taken a similar approach to South Wales Police.

Worth reading in full.