A group of MPs will today attempt to ensure there is a ‘right to criticise any and all religions’ following claims that a ‘blasphemy law’ is being revived.
Nick Timothy, the Tory MP for West Suffolk, will introduce a private member’s bill to the House of Commons in a bid to expand protections to insult religions.
He is being backed by 10 other Conservative MPs, as well as former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe who now sits as an independent.
The Freedom of Expression (Religion or Belief System) Bill seeks to make clear that criticising religion should be exempt from harassment laws.
It states the provision of the Public Order Act should not apply in the case of ‘discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents’.
England and Wales last had blasphemy laws in 2008, when they were repealed, while they were abolished in Scotland in 2021.
But recent cases have prompted claims that blasphemy law still, in effect, exists. Last week, Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence.
He shouted ‘f*** Islam’, ‘Islam is religion of terrorism’ and ‘Koran is burning’ while holding the flaming religious text aloft outside the Turkish consulate in London earlier this year.
Nick Timothy, the Tory MP for West Suffolk, will introduce a private member’s bill to the House of Commons in a bid to expand protections to insult religions
Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence. He shouted ‘f*** Islam’ and ‘Islam is religion of terrorism’ while holding a flaming Koran
The 50-year-old had argued his criticism was of Islam in general rather than its followers.
But District Judge John McGarva said he could not accept this, finding that Coskun’s actions were ‘highly provocative’ and that he was ‘motivated at least in part by a hatred of Muslims’.
He was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence of using disorderly behaviour ‘within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress’, motivated by ‘hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam’.
In a separate case, Martin Frost, 47, from Manchester, has been charged with a religiously aggravated public order offence after allegedly burning a Koran.
Mr Timothy told The Times: ‘The Public Order Act is increasingly being used as a blasphemy law to protect Islam from criticism.
‘The Act was never intended to do this. Parliament never voted for this, and the British people do not want it.
‘To use the Public Order Act in this way is especially perverse, since it makes a protester accountable for the actions of those who respond with violence to criticism of their faith. This is wrong, and it destroys our freedom of speech.
‘We should be honest that the law is only being used in this way because the authorities have become afraid of the violent reaction of mobs of people who want to impose their values on the rest of us.
‘My bill will put a stop to this and restore our freedom of speech – and our right to criticise any and all religions, including Islam.’
A Government spokesman said: ‘This Government will protect free speech, and will not introduce blasphemy laws.
‘We are proud to have a society where freedom of religion sits alongside the freedom to criticise religion and will continue to preserve this.’
