Radical Islamic clerics have infiltrated the United Kingdom to push an anti-blasphemy agenda to quell free speech in British schools and elsewhere, threatening the national security of the country, an upcoming report has warned.
A report from the Henry Jackson Society think tank set to be published today has warned that actions taken by Islamic groups outside schools and cinemas over what they deem as insults to the Islamic faith not only threaten the tenets of free speech but also the national security of Britain.
The report, Britain’s New Blasphemy Police?, excerpts of which were provided to the Daily Telegraph, states that public uproar over perceived blasphemy against Islam represents “a serious threat to social cohesion, individual liberties and the peaceful coexistence of diverse communities within the United Kingdom.”
“The threat is perhaps not taken as seriously as Salafi-jihadist style terror, yet it is nonetheless one that has a potential to inspire intimidation, violence and even mass killings,” Henry Jackson Society research fellow Charlotte Littlewood warned in the report.
The report claimed that foreign radical Islamic clerics, particularly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, have infiltrated Britain to call for “extreme anti-blasphemy action in the UK”.
The report focussed heavily on the protests that followed a teacher showing his students a caricature of the Islamic prophet Mohammed at the Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire in 2021. The teacher was initially suspended by the school and was subsequently forced into hiding after a local Islamic group shared his identity online. He, and his family, remain in hiding to this day for fear of violent reprisals.
This capitulation, by the school and indeed by the government in failing to protect the teacher from radical Islamists, set a “worrying precedent,” the think tank’s report stated, claiming that schools, as well as publishing houses and cinemas in Britain have been “potentially led by fear”.
“Accepting a tacit anti-blasphemy law is antithetical to our democratic values whilst also a threat to national security. Schools, cinemas and publishing houses need commitments to be made to their assured safety in the face of threats and renewed and robust guidelines on how to respond to threats of anti-blasphemy action.”
The think tank called on the Department of Education to ensure the safety of teachers and students in order to ensure censorship-free lessons and argued that the government should ban radical imams from entering the country in the first place.
Writing a forward to the report, Conservative MP Tim Loughton said: “It is time to afford extreme anti-blasphemy action the same attention we afford the likes of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. If the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in France are anything to go by, this ideological extremism has no lesser propensity for violence.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have been clear that it is never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers and we encourage dialogue between parents and schools when issues emerge.
“Schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum, including where they are challenging or controversial subject to their obligations to ensure political balance. However, they must balance this with the need to promote respect and tolerance between people of different faiths and beliefs, including in deciding which materials to use in the classroom.”