The incomparable Melanie Phillips (thanks to Pounce for the link) has posted this about the proposed new religious hatred law in Britain:
This afternoon, I attended a meeting called by organisations supporting the government’s proposed new law against incitement to religious hatred, which I believe threatens to suppress legitimate debate and criminalise people for simply telling the truth. Lined up in support of this bill were the Commission for Racial Equality, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), Justice, the British Humanist Association and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Interestingly, they were very much on the defensive, as they felt that the attack on the bill, mounted by the comedian Rowan Atkinson and many others on the grounds that it would criminalise legitimate speech, had already done serious damage to the government’s case….
Then I asked Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the MCB,whether he thought that any public statements about Islamic terrorism, or any speculation about the number of Muslims in Britain who might support Islamic terrorism, would constitute incitement to religious hatred. He said: ‘There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision’.
So now we know what the MCB wants to prosecute under this proposed new law.
Read it all.
Evidently, in Britain it will soon be illegal to quote the words of the Islamic terrorists themselves, who have made it abundantly clear that they base their actions on the Qur’an and Hadith. Britons will have to deny what is before their very eyes, while Islamic terrorists will be able to operate with impunity behind the official ban on recognizing their very existence.