With the atrocities last Thursday, the remaining stages of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which will be debated today in the Commons, are exciting more interest among my constituents. Actually, it's exciting opposition, and I have been trying to allay the fears which have been expressed.
Much correspondence has centred on the idea that members of one religious grouping will not be able to evangelise or to criticise other religions; for instance, some Christian constituents have said that they will be at risk of prosecution if they say "Muslims will go to hell". I listened very carefully to the Second Reading debate a few weeks ago, and to the Home Secretary. He repeatedly gave assurances that people like my constituents will not face prosecution.
As I have written before, there has been much media excitement about the Bill, with personalities like Rowan Atkinson claiming that they would be stopped from telling jokes about religion. This is simply not the case. People often say that in politics they never hear people give totally straight answers to straight questions. In this case, though, when constituents say to me, "Will I be prosecuted or investigated for preaching my religion?", I say, unequivocally, "No".
I think that these concerns are a world away from some of the concerns of people who are faced with fascist thugs putting about literature saying that they should be rounded up and forcibly deported. It is these people who need protection and those thugs whom the Bill will target.
Posted at 03:22 pm by juliemorgan
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Rob
July 27, 2005 09:28 AM PDT
I don't accept that at all. We have to recognise that while there are people who are disaffected in society, like the people who carried out the attacks in London, who are angry about our foreign policy, there are also people who have no interest in the welfare of people in Iraq, or Palestine, or anywhere. They want to kill, pure and simple, and no amount of changing our foreign policy would convince them to stop what they're doing - they'd just use another excuse. |
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Andy
July 27, 2005 06:41 AM PDT
Neither of which is the real issue.
Radicalism in Islam appears to be driven by US support for what Isreal does in Palestine. |
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Julie
July 26, 2005 12:52 PM PDT
I don't know where you got the idea that I am a supporter of the Iraq war — I thought that it was the wrong thing to do then and I still do. There was a majority in the country against it and I think it was the wrong decision.
I do think that it is too simple to say that we bombed Iraq, therefore these people bombed London — it is far more complex than that and involves a group of people who feel that there is no place for them in society. There is also the issue of radical clerics that needs to be tackled. |
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A former Labour voter
July 15, 2005 02:18 PM PDT
Wouldn't the best way to combat Islamophobia be to pin the blame for the bombings on British foreign policy - but you are a supporter of the war now, Julie, aren't you?
When you marched with the anti-war movement a long time ago, didn't we argue that the war on terror would increase terrorism?
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