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Freedom of Speech

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, for initiating this debate on such a current issue. The past few weeks have not been happy for secular-minded people. They have resulted in loss of life far beyond our shores and have weakened international relations between the West and the Muslim world. They have also shown that a common European foreign policy has some way to go. I, for one, regret the lack of solidarity with Denmark and Norway by the EU, when all tenets of international law were breached in the ransacking of those countries’ missions in Syria and Lebanon. The EU could and should have been more vigorous in its condemnation of those acts. My more immediate concern is with community relations between western Muslims, in particular, our situation here in Britain, and broader questions of freedom of speech. As the only Muslim speaking in this debate, I will not dwell on theological arguments about how offensive these cartoons are. That they are, is indisputable, and we find ourselves in a situation where large numbers of our fellow citizens feel deeply offended by the publication and republication of those cartoons. Newspapers are going out of their way to republish the cartoons and that is turning legitimate debate into gratuitous offence. It does not help anything other than to provide succour to ““fundamentalists”” on each side. Is that the agenda of those defending free speech? I would hope not. Turning to ““fundamentalists”” on the Muslim side—namely those protesting in London last weekend—many of us can understand that those demonstrating had high feelings. What we cannot understand or condone are the implicit and explicit incitements to terrorism and murder. I, and countless others like me, have just one thing to say to them—““Not in my name””. What is also troubling about recent events is the role of certain clerics who appear to have said one thing for their western audiences, and said other far more radical things to Muslim audiences. I would urge religious leaders to be moderate and consistent. Violence and loss of life are not in the interests of any group on any side. It is also difficult to understand how the Metropolitan Police arrived at its decision to do nothing about the offensive placards. There are also allegations by some of the protestors, repeated on BBC’s ““Newsnight”” on Monday, that the Met had ““cleared”” the placards as being acceptable. If that is so, it is very grave. I appreciate that the police are independent of ministerial control, but hope that in due course the Metropolitan Police Authority will seek the truth of those allegations. I also hope that, unlike the Abu Hamza case, the police do not hold back from arresting those advocating violence in such protests. It does no community good if the police interpret the same laws differently across different communities, as the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, has detailed. Moving to broader questions of freedom of expression, let me say from the outset that I am clearly in the camp that seeks to uphold that right, recognising that at times offence is indeed caused and deeply felt. Does this mean that we should be more careful in the exercising that right? My answer would be ““yes,”” but I prefer self-censorship to state censorship, hence my opposition over the past years to the many provisions restricting free speech that this Government have tried to legislate for in recent Bills. I prefer a situation where we recognise that there is a thin dividing line between free speech on the one hand and tolerance on the other. I would, therefore, urge the Government to oppose calls from the newly formed Muslim Action Committee yesterday, which seeks to outlaw the publication of cartoons in the UK by strengthening the Press Complaints Commission’s code. I would say to them that the Muslim cause is well served under current legislation. Enlarging the scope of the law may well result in casting the net so wide that the very first people caught by it are Muslims themselves. There are also wider questions for us western Muslims. If we choose to live in the West, should we not make an attempt to understand western history and the meaning of the Enlightenment? I found the tone of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, interesting, particularly in her portrayal of Christian tolerance and harmony. Might I go so far as to remind the noble Baroness, most respectfully, that the Enlightenment followed the Inquisition when, of course, many people were burned at the stake as heretics? Turning to ourselves, as Muslims, I would say that we should go beyond understanding, to empathise with the richness of western culture. While we can take just pride in our own, should we also not embrace western freedoms, such as those of dissent and protest in democracies? I would say to my co-religionists that we have some way to go in moderating our excessively emotional behaviour, and in understanding how to protest and voice dissent in a responsible manner. I do not refer only to western Muslims here, but to the loss of life across the Muslim world. Getting angry in the abstract should not lead to the violence we have witnessed recently. Islam stands above all this. We need to learn that respect for our belief cannot be forcibly extracted. By our behaviour it is earned, and by our behaviour diminishes us all. Such are the laws of unintended consequences. In concluding, it would be tempting to reflect on these last days and hope that it will all blow over. While I would deeply hope that that may be the case, I suspect that much bridge building needs to follow. One aspect of that bridge building is the Government’s Commission on Integration, announced by the Prime Minister last August. This is needed now more than ever and I urge the Government to get it underway by setting it up and seeking support from across the political spectrum—and beyond—in that endeavour. We all need to work together to move beyond these troubled times.