Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, I am against the Bill. I should perhaps explain that, while I am a member of the Secular Society, I have always supported the right of people who have a religion to practise it and to proselytise. That is not an issue here. Yet the Government have, in my view, failed to identify any activity which would be illegal under the Bill and is not already illegal under existing law. It is also draconian: the maximum penalty is seven years in prison, with prosecution thresholds very low. Most importantly, it could severely limit freedom of expression—both directly and through self-censorship, as people become increasingly worried about speaking their minds. In this respect I have a particular concern. There are a number of religions—and the fundamentalist strain of Islam is one—where the attitude to women is quite unacceptable. In this country, generations of women have campaigned and fought for their rights, which we now take for granted. We have equality laws, and a commission to enforce those rights—but the fundamentalist strain of Islam does not acknowledge that women have such rights. The more extreme versions condone violence against women. In countries where Sharia law is practised, young teenage girls have been publicly executed for ““offences against chastity””. Women are forced to wear the jilbab whether they want to or not—and many women do not want to, with all that it entails. In this country, when a girl pupil went to the High Court and won the right to wear the jilbab to her school, it was presented as a victory for Muslim women. Of course, most of us agreed that she should be allowed to wear it if she wished, but many Muslim women did not see it like that. One wrote to a newspaper columnist to say:"““My sisters and me could always tell our Dad and uncles that we weren’t allowed to wear the jilbab. Once the rules were changed, that excuse was not possible any more, so my sisters have been terrified into wearing this cumbersome and dehumanising garment all day against their wishes.””" It should not therefore be assumed that all Muslim women are happy to submit to restrictions in the name of their religion. I read the Q-News magazine, a very interesting Muslim journal. It sometimes has letters and articles from women, demonstrating that they are not prepared to accept the restraints imposed upon them within their communities. A recent letter talks of the terrible situation of women under male authority in much of the Islamic world. Muslim men, the article says, have so consistently violated their position of authority and leadership that drastic measures are now required for women to retrieve their self-respect and control over their lives. That is unfortunately becoming clear in Iraq, where the elections have been regarded as a great democratic achievement. Yet I notice that there were two separate queues to vote, one of men and the other of women—and all the women were clad head to foot in the jilbab. There was talk of an Islamic state applying Sharia law, and women are now having to struggle to retain the rights they had, even under Saddam, under the personal status law. That does not bode well for women’s rights, and I understand a women’s committee there has appealed to the UN women’s committee for assistance. The point is that the suppression of women’s rights is all done in the name of religion. Not all Muslims—or leading Muslims—feel the same way. Dr Zaki Badawi, director of the Muslim College, has said in a recently published interview—"““The main development for the Muslim community in this country is that the traditional position of women will have to change””." He has this to say about the legislation we are now considering."““Religious beliefs themselves should be completely open to criticism. My concern is only when they use an individual’s religion as a way to prevent them holding particular jobs or going to certain places. This is a basic equality and anti-discrimination policy issue””." He is, of course, quite right about that. We have already debated the Equality Bill, which is establishing an over-arching commission to ensure enforcement. That prevents discrimination—in the provision of goods and services, and employment on grounds of religion—in the way that Dr Badawi recommends, and has been supported generally. When I spoke on that Bill, I said that we did not need this Bill on religious hatred as well. If it goes unamended onto the statute book it will encourage those very fundamentalists who seek to maintain their misogynist approach on the basis of its being a religious requirement. It will strengthen their hand, as against those with the moderate and humane approach of Dr Badawi. Any attack on the way religion treats women will be regarded by some of these clerics as an incitement to religious hatred. This has already led to violence in the Netherlands, with the murder of the film-maker Van Gogh by an Islamic fundamentalist in response to a film about Islamic attitudes to women. The Bill should not pass this House as it stands.