Anyways, the worst thing you can do to your enemy is ignore them, once you give them attention through calls for retaliation and desired/subsequent censorship; you feed their cause, add weight to their views and double their fan-base. We all know that controversy sells, and we’ve seen Muslims fall into this trap too many times. Eudaemonion has mentioned a few examples, and it’s only now through the outcome of these incidents, that Muslims are seeing the wisdom behind this stance. And for Amir’s foresight, as a British Muslim myself, I thank him.

Shameful really. You would think Muslims of all people would value the importance of the presumption of innocence. Allahumusta3an.

SSK, Adney, Andy, Sara K,

someone needs to make a clear apology to Amir, before there is any discussion on any topic with you.

Otherwise you are perfectly welcome to leave.

MCB Press Release
25 October 2005

“The Muslim Council of Britain has called on the House of Lords to reject the amendments proposed on 25th October by those opposed to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Their effect is to deny British Muslims the same level of legal protection that is given to some racial and religious groups including Jews and Sikhs under existing racial incitement laws.The MCB believes that some opponents of the Bill have been engaged in a campaign to misrepresent its purpose and have misleadingly claimed that it will prevent criticism or ridicule of religion. This is demonstrably untrue as will be clear to anyone who has read the actual wording of the Bill.MCB Secretary General Iqbal Sacranie noted, “the opponents of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill have yet to provide a credible answer as to why we can trust our judicial system to be able to make a distinction between criticism of the Jewish and Sikh religions and incitement to hatred against Jews and Sikhs, while not being able to do the same in the case of other faith groups, including Muslims,” added Sir Iqbal. Existing incitement laws in England and Wales and Northern Ireland have proved that it is possible to give protection to people without infringing on the right to free speech and the right to criticize religious beliefs.

http://www.mcb.org.uk/article_.....cement-510

Assalamu alaikum

I am sorry but I don’t agree with you for the following reasons:

1. The Race and Religious Hatred Act 2006 was rendered “toothless” by amendments made in the House of the Lords on the 25th of October 2005. The Lords placed the burden of proof of “intent to stir up religious hatred” on the prosecutors of this law. The Government attempted to overturn these changes, but lost the House of Commons votes on 31st January 2006.

2. The Muslim community in UK were disappointed about the result of that vote. The MBC and other representative organisations had spent a lot of time and effort lobbying politicians to support the original Bill. Apart from Ghayasuddin Siddiqui and his one man Muslim Parliament, all the major Muslim organisations in the UK supported the original Bill.

3. Before 2006, the BBC had to send undercover reporters to film the BNP’s anti-Islam attacks against Muslims. Following the new bill the BNP were emboldened to do it in public because they were from then on able to argue that their “intention was political activism and not to “stir up religious hatred”. thanks to the Lords amendments.

As Muslims who like to think of ourselves as intelligent and sophisticated, it is vital that we get the balance right between understanding our weaknesses and that of recognising the strengths of those who oppose us.

The argument is simple: The playing field is not level. When one or two groups are protected by the law and they use that as cover from which to attack a group that is not protected by the law, the law must to be changed.

Is this not what equality and rule of law is all about?