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A press release from the Barnabas Fund (thanks to Nicolei):
The government has dropped plans to introduce laws banning Incitement to Religious Hatred before the election after coming under intense pressure from both opposition parties and a coalition of groups co-ordinated by Barnabas Fund who oppose the laws on free speech grounds.The leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain announced yesterday that
the government was dropping laws banning Incitement to Religious
Hatred from its Serious Organised Crime and Police (SOCP) Bill in
order to get the rest of the Bill through before parliament rises for
the general election. The announcement was confirmed by Baroness
Scotland in the House of Lords. The laws have been opposed by both the
Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties who would have blocked the
Bill's progress in the House of Lords if the hate laws had not been
dropped.The government first announced it intended to introduce laws banning
incitement to religious hatred in July last year. In November they
came before the House of Commons as part of the SOCP Bill. Although
initially expecting little resistance, from the outset the government
met determined opposition to the laws from a broad-based coalition of
journalists, senior lawyers, MPs, peers, human rights groups, civil
liberties organizations, religious organisations, secularists and
actors, amongst others, co-ordinated by Barnabas Fund. The coalition
is deeply concerned that the laws will effectively end up banning all
legitimate criticism of religion and religious practices thus damaging
free speech.Barnabas Fund organised an effective letter-writing campaign last
summer which alerted MPs to the significant level of concern for free
speech which existed and gave the issue much more prominence than it
would otherwise have received. From November onwards as the SOCP Bill
came before parliament Barnabas Fund along with many other
organisations again lobbied MPs and Lords. Peers received well over
100 letters each (MPs many more). One Lord commented that he had
received more letters on this issue than he had on the Fox Hunting and
Mental Capacity bills put together.The government remains committed to the idea of introducing laws
banning incitement to religious hatred and has promised to reintroduce
them if they are returned to power in the election. Patrick Sookhdeo,
International Director at Barnabas Fund, said "We are very pleased
that the government has been forced to withdraw these laws for now. We
hope the government will recognise that there is enormous public
concern about the effect religious hate laws could have on legitimate
free speech and think twice before attempting to re-introduce
them".Dr Sookhdeo thanked the many thousands of people who made this current
success possible by writing to MPs and peers expressing their
concerns. "This is increasingly becoming a matter which is motivating
those who value free speech all over the world" he said. "Similar laws
are creating deep misgivings in other nations including Australia and
New Zealand. None of us want to dismiss the concerns of those who feel
themselves victimised in our society. However, significant law already
exists to deal with those genuinely trying to peddle hate. People
should be protected; ideologies should not."
Posted by Robert at April 6, 2005 7:44 AM
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"People should be protected; ideologies should not."
This is a fine sentiment but laws in certain countries such as Britain take slander and libel laws as far as the now repressed hate-speech law. The fragility of freedom of speech is evident by how easily governments and ideologies can silence critics intimidation by violence or as easily as putting pen to paper and concocting an edict or legislation that accomplishes the same.
Posted by: epg![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 6, 2005 9:02 AM
I don't know what to make of this item. Canada has laws banning hate speech and we now (rightly) have a former leader of the Assembly of First Nations facing criminal charges for telling a reporter that "the Jews were like a disease" and "Hitler was right to fry 6 million of them to prevent them from taking over."
At the time of the incident David Ahenekew claimed he was unwell at the time and therefore not responsible for making the offensive statements, but now that he's defending the charges as his right to "freedom of speech" he says that what he said was indeed what he believed, but he was goaded into saying it.
I think it is possible to apply objective standards to what constitutes hate speech and what consitutes fair comment, in which case we know who should really be concerned about the passage of such laws.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at April 6, 2005 9:17 AM
People should be protected; ideologies should not
Amen. This must be the watchword for JW/DW and all other organisations seeking to disseminate the truth about Islam. If we are proscribed from criticising religious dogma, or worse -- political ideology masquerading as religion (and clearly, this is the objective of Labour's legislation), the intellectual contest between those who wish to Islamise the UK and those of us who resist, will quickly degenerate into bloody street battles.
This is a transparent and failed effort on the part of Tony Blair to appease his Muslim consituency; even many of them do not want it because they know the Qur'an is the prime offender of incitement to religious hatred.
Posted by: Charles Martel at April 6, 2005 9:19 AM
The genie's already out of the bottle. The idea of anti-villification laws is seductive to people in power. Note the following line in the above article:
"The government remains committed to the idea of introducing laws banning incitement to religious hatred and has promised to reintroduce them if they are returned to power in the election."
Posted by: ted at April 6, 2005 10:18 AM
Excellent news!
Posted by: Interestd at April 6, 2005 10:59 AM
Ha!
Ia, are you listening, old chap? I shouldn't put too much faith in suppressing free speech later either, were I you. The truth tends to out.
Geoff
Posted by: Geoff at April 6, 2005 11:17 AM
Told you so - but what a media blackout.
This will never get through the Lords. Nor should it - it's a pile of crap.
ID cards have also been dropped. Good stuff. They are totally un-British.
Posted by: Interestd at April 6, 2005 7:34 PM
waterdragon 52-
"Hate speech" and "hate crimes" are dangerous 'thoughtcrime' absurdities.
Orwell should have cauterized this impulse from the despotically-inclined human species in his writings. But I guess too few read.
A 'crime' should be a real, physically-provable event. Not an idea. Prosecute actual harm, not mere offensive idiocies. Make laws for bodily injuries. Not the supposed thought behind it.
The only exceptions would be incitement to imminent harm, like provoking a riot, attempting to stampede a crowd (yelling "fire" in a theater when there is no fire), or being a vocal and terroristic public nuisance.
If you get a permit to speak in a venue, no one should be able to silence you, unless you are vocally advocating the commission of an existing 'crime'. ("Let's go and kill all of the first-born children in this neighborhood, now!" etc.)
Any moron can believe what they want- and most do.
But, until their stupidity is manifested in action (with the above exceptions noted), they are free to be self-revealing fools. And the rest of us are free to laugh at their demonstrations of brainlessness. ("The holocaust was a myth... actually, only 12 elderly Jews in a hospice near Cracow died, and that was only because, for 'kosher' reasons, they wouldn't take their typhus medication that the kindly 'Death's Head' Commandos begged them to take!")
Probably everyone hates some kind of cretin or their cretinous thinking. But, if these 'hate crime' laws were carried to their logical end, they would tend to make 'thought criminals' of us all.
Freedom of speech means the freedom to be an ass.
And for those around to know it.
(The spectators can always throw tomatoes and rotten eggs at neo-Nazis, etc., as their free speech reply... and go to jail, righteously... for littering.)
Posted by: BigSleep
at April 6, 2005 7:35 PM
BigSleep - spot on, and I'm glad the spirit of Orwell lives on.
(Don't know if anyone saw Simon Sharma's 'History of Britain' documentary, but one of the good things about it was the last episode where he talked about Orwell and Churchill. On the face of it the two could not be more different. Orwell was a Socialist. Churchill, well, if you don't know... What they both had in common was patriotism, an ability to see through bullshit, and an instinctive grasp of the enemy: totalitarianism.)
The idea of thoughtcrime is repellent. Belongs in Europe but not in Britain. Britain is not part of Europe, and I hope never will be.
Posted by: Interestd at April 6, 2005 7:56 PM
In The Netherlands we (still) have an article in the penal code that puts punisment on using the name of God slanderously. Following the murder of Van Gogh, our minister of Justice advocated strongly that this article would be more used (it resulted in its ca 70 years of existence in about 3 lawsuits, that all ended with an acquital).
So far it has not happened. But the mere existence of this article, as well as the articles in the constitution that allow freedom of religion and forbid discrimination on (among other things) religious grounds puts "believers" in an advanced position compared to seculiars. P.e. Some lifestile books of Moslims (like raising your child in a non-miuslimcountry and The way of the Muslim)were this week only partly forbidden because its contens were religiously inspired. Things as "Throw homosexuals from high buildings" are okay since thise liferules are given in the Quran (ok, in the Quaran they talked about throwing from rocks and stoning afterwards, who says there is no modernisation in Islam?) and thus protected by the constitution. If you would say that p.e. the opinions on homosexuality are backward, then you can be prosecuted for insulting religious believes. Homosexuals who feel insulted about the idea of throwing them from buildings stand a far worse change when they claim being insulted by this idea.
If those articles in the penal code and constitution would be strikken there would still be freedom of religion, because there is freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. What it would do is put the ideas advocated by a religion on the same level, and under the same protection, as ideas advocated by other ideologies, and everybody would have the same rights to insult or take offence. So far, it has not happened en thus the nonbelievers are less free then others to voice their opinions and more libel to prosecution for voicing them.
This means that under the veile of religion believers can do and say more then non-believers. Mark that Mein Kampf is forbidden in the Netherlands because of its ideas on Jews and superiority and that those ideas are not all that different from those advocated by the Quaran.
Thus, totalitarity and hatespeech is allowed as long at it is inspired by some imaginairy friend from above. Sometimes I think about starting my own religion, just to able to blame Someone (I have not worked out yet who that will be) for making me say hatefull things.
I'm very happy to hear that at least in the UK has returned from its seculair ways and thus honouring the principals of equality and free speech.
Posted by: Ernst at April 7, 2005 5:43 AM
In The Netherlands we (still) have an article in the penal code that puts punisment on using the name of God slanderously. Following the murder of Van Gogh, our minister of Justice advocated strongly that this article would be more used (it resulted in its ca 70 years of existence in about 3 lawsuits, that all ended with an acquital).
So far it has not happened. But the mere existence of this article, as well as the articles in the constitution that allow freedom of religion and forbid discrimination on (among other things) religious grounds puts "believers" in an advanced position compared to seculiars. P.e. Some lifestile books of Moslims (like raising your child in a non-miuslimcountry and The way of the Muslim)were this week only partly forbidden because its contens were religiously inspired. Things as "Throw homosexuals from high buildings" are okay since thise liferules are given in the Quran (ok, in the Quaran they talked about throwing from rocks and stoning afterwards, who says there is no modernisation in Islam?) and thus protected by the constitution. If you would say that p.e. the opinions on homosexuality are backward, then you can be prosecuted for insulting religious believes. Homosexuals who feel insulted about the idea of throwing them from buildings stand a far worse change when they claim being insulted by this idea.
If those articles in the penal code and constitution would be strikken there would still be freedom of religion, because there is freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. What it would do is put the ideas advocated by a religion on the same level, and under the same protection, as ideas advocated by other ideologies, and everybody would have the same rights to insult or take offence. So far, it has not happened en thus the nonbelievers are less free then others to voice their opinions and more libel to prosecution for voicing them.
This means that under the veile of religion believers can do and say more then non-believers. Mark that Mein Kampf is forbidden in the Netherlands because of its ideas on Jews and superiority and that those ideas are not all that different from those advocated by the Quaran.
Thus, totalitarity and hatespeech is allowed as long at it is inspired by some imaginairy friend from above. Sometimes I think about starting my own religion, just to able to blame Someone (I have not worked out yet who that will be) for making me say hatefull things.
I'm very happy to hear that at least in the UK has returned from its seculair ways and thus honouring the principals of equality and free speech.
Posted by: Ernst at April 7, 2005 5:43 AM
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