|
FAIR PROTECTION AGAINST RELIGIOUS OFFENCES CAMPAIGN You may be aware that in January 2002, Lord Avebury introduced a Religious Offences Bill in the House of Lords, this Bill seeks to create a new offence relating to the incitement of religious hatred. It is apparent that existing legislation fails to offers Muslims adequate protection from incitement of religious hatred . Following the backlash against the Muslim community in the wake of 11th September, legislation was sought to address this anomaly in the law. Although this new legislation succeeded in affording protection against harassment, violence and criminal damage to property motivated by religious hatred it failed in retaining the provisions on incitement. Muslims, as well as other multi-ethnic religious communities in the UK are, therefore, still not protected against the offence of incitement of religious hatred. The second part of the Avebury Bill seeks to extend the necessary protection from INCITEMENT OF RELIGIOUS HATRED to ALL religious groups and is particularly important to Muslims for a number of reasons: The result of such lack of protection is that the British National Party’s (BNP) are able to incite hatred against Muslims with impunity. Furthermore as a result of international events and the rise of the far right across Europe, Muslims in Britain today are fair game. This has resulted in widespread outbursts of Islamophobic attacks. If the Avebury Bill becomes law, it could prove invaluable in curbing the ability of the BNP and other right-wing organisations, and protect against the incitement of religious hatred. We urge you to participate in this campaign by writing to your MP and to the Select Committee on Religious Affairs, encouraging them to support the bill. For your convenience we have attached model letters, please use these as templates, remember to include the date, your name, contact details and signature as appropriate. Please aim to have the letters sent off by August the 30th 2002. To download examples of anti-slamic BNP literature please click on the links below.. Attach this literature with the letters to the Parliamentarians. Letter to MPs |
