Sorry, Suella, we do have blasphemy laws
by Jeremiah Igunnubole, Artillery Row:
It would be naive to think freedom of speech is safe.
n the Times last weekend, Home Secretary Suella Braverman put forward a blistering defence of free speech and religious freedom:
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.
Religious liberty underpins the essential freedom of people of all faiths and none to live according to their convictions.
Those who live in parts of the world where such freedoms frequently are violated appreciate this more than most. In Nigeria, for example, a potentially landmark case is to be heard at the Supreme Court regarding a Sufi Muslim musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu. His “crime”? Sharing allegedly “blasphemous” song-lyrics to a private group on Whatsapp. They referred to a nineteenth-century Imam revered in his particular tradition of Islam. For this, he has languished in jail for three years and was sentenced to death under Northern Nigeria’s draconian blasphemy law.
Whilst we may not have the death penalty in the UK, there is now a clear and consistent threat to free speech and religion, such as attempts to undermine the quality of life of those who dare to hold opinions different from the mainstream. Braverman rightly points out concerning examples of self-righteous “cancel culture”. An autistic school child who accidentally scuffed a Qu’ran was suspended and placed on de facto community trial at a Mosque recently, for example, while a street preacher was arrested for “misgendering” a passer-by.
Such examples should cause deep concern about the state of free expression in our country. Nobody should be ousted from public life for either expressing a religious belief, or rejecting one. But it can no longer be argued that the pressures on freedom of religion and expression are purely socio-cultural.
On Tuesday, MPs voted in a law that would criminalise prayer on certain public streets. As part of the Public Order Bill, praying to God — even silently, in one’s own mind — on certain public streets in the UK could now be a criminal offence. The bill will enact a sizeable perimeter of 150m around all abortion facilities in the UK, prohibiting “influence” of any kind, including, as evidenced by recent legal challenges, prayer.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
