JH 🇬🇧

🚨 ISLAMIC BLASPHEMY LAW BY THE BACK DOOR 🚨 Kellie-Jay Keen (@ThePosieParker) has been charged with a criminal offence over posts criticising Islam, Muslim cultural practices and Islamism. The Free Speech Union is proud to be defending her. In a free society, no religion or cultural practice should be immune from criticism. Since Labour came to power, the number of FSU cases involving people penalised for criticising Islam has doubled. It is now the single biggest category in our casework. And now, with a state-approved definition of Islamophobia — rebranded as “anti-Muslim hostility” — things are only getting worse. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Communities Secretary Angela Rayner met Muslim community leaders in Downing Street. Burnham took a swipe at critics of Islam, saying “some of the language” opposition parties use “is unacceptable”, and told the leaders “we need to find ways with you to demonstrate that more and more”. We now await Rayner’s appointment of an “Islamophobia tsar” who will help enforce the definition. All five hand-picked members of the Working Group that drafted it have concerning links to Islamist organisations, as FSU Research and Policy Director @DavidRoseUK exposed in his report. We have little hope that the appointed tsar will be good news for free speech. Meanwhile, the Government is refusing to say who submitted responses to the Working Group, so we cannot know which groups shaped the definition. Islamists may well have had a hand in its drafting. Support the FSU’s campaign against an Islamic blasphemy law — and the people penalised under it 👇