12 April 2005

A small but significant victory

Dear Friends,

By now some of you may have heard that the UK Blair government has decided to drop its proposal for a law against inciting religious hatred after considerable opposition in the House of Lords and a public outcry from community groups including the Barnabas Fund and the Christian Institute.

We praise God for this significant victory – but the battle is not yet won. Tony Blair has foreshadowed another religious hatred bill if he is re-elected on 5 May.

The House of Lords debate on the proposal makes absorbing reading. Colin Hart of the Christian Institute has just sent me a hefty volume of Hansard for 14 March 2005 (Hansard is the official report of every word spoken in parliamentary debates). So many peers wanted to speak on the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill that the Whips gave them just eight minutes each so they could (like Cinderella) go home before midnight!

Clause 124 (with schedule 10) – on the offence of “incitement to religious hatred” – was by far the most controversial part of the bill. Opponents outnumbered supporters by almost 2:1.

Several pointed out that religious hatred is very different from racial hatred. As Lord Baker said: “Incitement to racial hatred is rightly a crime because … if you are born into a race, you cannot abandon and change it: you have it for life. That is not the case with religion, which is a set of ideas … Like any set of ideas, it can be challenged, criticised, vilified, satirised and mocked. It is capable of being changed – there is a choice. That is the important and vital distinction …”

The plight of Pastor Daniel Scot – who, with me, had told a meeting of peers on 9 February about the injustice of Victoria’s similar Racial and Religious Tolerance Act – had clearly made an impact. Several peers, including the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth and Baroness Caroline Cox, mentioned his case.

Lady Cox used Daniel Scot’s case to illustrate her firm opposition to the incitement to religious hatred clause. However the Bishop of Portsmouth thought the VCAT finding demonstrated the poor wording of the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. The bishop said he would support the UK legislation provided it was amended to ensure that the bill was “not about shielding religion from criticism, vilification or mockery, but defending people from real harm done in the name of religion”.

Other peers, representing the Blair government, insisted that clause 124 and schedule 10 “will categorically not restrict the ability of any person to proselytise their religious faith or to comment on or criticise the teaching of any faith or the religious practices of any faith group”.

I had a strong sense of “deja vue”. Last week I read the Victorian Legislative Assembly Hansard on the Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill (5 June 2001). Speaker after speaker reassured the many citizens who complained that the bill would take away their freedom to critique other belief systems. “No worries!” the MPs said (in effect). “We’ve inserted a new preamble upholding free speech and a new exception (requested by major church leaders) for conduct with a genuine religious purpose.”

But these amendments did not protect Daniel Scot, who was found guilty of religious vilification on 17 December 2004, even though he has expert knowledge of Islam and had a genuine religious reason for conducting his seminar for Christians in a Melbourne church on 9 March 2002.

The VCAT judge had no qualifications in either Christian or Islamic theology. His faulty reasoning on many aspects of the case is now considered “the facts”. When I was in London, people said to me that Daniel Scot must have been “over the top” because the Daily Mail reported he had called Muslims “demons”. I pointed out that this was one of many instances where the judge was wrong. The seminar transcript clearly shows that Daniel Scot did not call Muslims “demons”. He merely read verses from the Quran telling how some demons (“jinn”) came to Mohammed and became Muslims.

However appealing the flawed judgement will not be easy. Daniel Scot and the seminar sponsor Danny Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries may seek a judicial review of the processes involved in the VCAT hearing. But if they are successful, the Supreme Court of Victoria could order a new hearing!

Even if the complaint by the Islamic Council of Victoria is ultimately dismissed, Daniel Scot and Danny Nalliah will have suffered enormous stress and financial hardship.

The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, like the UK incitement to religious hatred legislation, is a bad law. As Lord Hunt told the House of Lords on 14 March, “This is a lawyer’s dream and a citizen’s nightmare.”

MPs in Victoria need letters urging them to repeal the law, and MPs in NSW need letters urging them not to go down this unjust road.

God bless!

ROS

Mrs Roslyn Phillips, B Sc Dip Ed Research Officer, Festival of Light Australia

Website http://www.fol.org.au