Karl Turner, a Labour MP, is the first of Labour's backbenchers to break ranks and say that laws already exist to tackle hatred against Muslims and that free speech must be protected. He questioned the need for the Government to define Islamophobia. Ministers published the first official definition of anti-Muslim hostility to help 'understand, measure, prevent and address' the problem.
The Government document said the definition can be a tool for organisations to measure the scale of the problem including 'empowering people to report incidents'. Downing Street insisted that public sector bodies will not be under orders to record incidents of anti-Muslim hostility. The Prime Minister's spokesman told reporters, 'We are not imposing new monitoring requirements on schools or businesses.
I think we have to tread carefully in this area to be perfectly honest with you.
' An organisation run by one of the Government's advisers on Islamophobia claimed that tens of thousands of incidents are currently going unreported. ' However, the evidence supporting the claim that 80% of anti-Muslim incidents go unreported has not been specified. Andrew Gilligan, Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, criticized the move, saying, 'This is a clear act of two-tier policy.
Hatred and discrimination against Muslims are already illegal.
If you are an advocate of free speech, I think you have to encourage people to say what they think is right.