The lesson from Batley Grammar: Mob intimidation wins
by Gary Oliver, The Conservative Woman:
THE battle of Batley Grammar School is over. Islamist intolerance and intimidation has triumphed.
This is the only conclusion to be drawn from news that the teacher who showed depictions of Muhammad to a religious studies class, for which he was hounded into hiding, has been left too scared to resume working at the West Yorkshire school.
It is an unwelcome win for the menacing mob which protested at the school gates. In particular, it is a disheartening and undeserved victory for Purpose of Life, the rabble-rousing local Islamic ‘charity’ which incitingly identified the teacher and publicly demanded that he be ‘permanently removed from Batley Grammar School’.
Suspended in March and disowned by the school’s lily-livered head, last month the teacher was cleared of wrongdoing and given his job back. However, it did not require second sight for me previously to forecast that the petrified teacher would not return to Batley: ‘It is impossible to imagine him doing so: not only was he treated shoddily by the school, it would require enormous courage – some would say foolhardiness – to revisit the scene where the intimidating Islamists gathered to demand his dismissal.’
It was an offer he could only refuse (as have two colleagues who were also suspended for their complicity). Because as a ‘source close to the teacher’ has been quoted: ‘On paper, he’s got his job back but returning to the school is not a possibility . . . he doesn’t feel safe teaching there and genuinely fears that he could be killed.’
As well he might, because Muhammadans are not noted for their willingness to forgive and forget or let bygones be bygones. It is entirely understandable that the Batley teacher should fear the same fate as French counterpart Samuel Paty, beheaded in the street last year after Islamic fundamentalists similarly took blasphemous offence.
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