Blasphemy Laws and Posie Parker
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Some people think that the UK doesn’t have blasphemy laws. I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, and if we take a few moments to look at what is happening to “Posie Parker,” aka Kellie-Jay Keen, we might be in for a bit of a shock.
Kellie-Jay Keen has been charged under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 over social media posts made between 23rd and 25th June earlier this year.
We are going to have a look at the posts concerned in a minute, but first let’s understand that for the criminal charge to be made against her under existing British law, no victim is needed and neither is any intent. Some readers outside the UK may find this incredible, but that’s how things now operate. The offence is complete once the message is sent if a court finds it “grossly offensive.” The 2003 Communications Act is pernicious.
Here is one of the tweets the police read back to her.
From my vantage point, that seems a perfectly reasonable unfiltered take on Islam. It does not name any individual nor does it animate violence towards Muslims. Some might say it is hard-hitting, but the more appropriate question is whether it is criminal. It looks like the CPS has determined that it is criminal, hence the charge.
Britain got rid of its blasphemy laws years ago. We are theoretically allowed to criticise, ridicule and even abuse a religion. Yet here we are, watching the police and CPS treat a blunt opinion about doctrine and patterns of behaviour like it needs a charge sheet.
There’s the matter of the speech as well.
At Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally back in May she basically said:
“Get Islam out of the classrooms, out of Parliament, out of the official offices, out of every place of authority if we want to save the country.”
She was putting forward a robust political argument about influence, separation of religion and state, and what kind of country this is supposed to be. That used to be the sort of thing you could argue about without the police turning up. In fact it used to be the sort of thing that the political left once espoused. But not any more.
Then there is this incident which happened in July.
The video shows her confronting two muslim men praying in a corner of Hyde Park. She questioned why they were praying there, said “This is not what we do in this country,” and declared “I’m an Islamophobe, not a racist.” She later shared a photo from the incident captioned along the lines of “On your knees bitches.”
Critics called this a deliberate anti-Muslim hate incident and harassment of people at prayer. I do think that she is on less sure ground here as it could be reasonably seen to be disrespectful, but even harrassing, but I can’t see how it is criminal?
Of course what is happening to Kellie-Jay Keen is not happening in a vacuum. Tommy Robinson has spent years being dragged through the courts, contempt hearings and the constant threat of prison. Danny Tommo is currently in prison facing charges after the Channel dinghy thing. Kellie-Jay Keen is just the latest to suffer the process is the punishment.
What is really clear to see is that some of the people making the loudest public criticisms of mass migration, Islamist influence and the cultural changes that come with both are getting lawfared into misery.
What makes Posie a bit different from the other two is that she’s a woman. She’s spent years talking about gender issues and already gets attacked from the left for it. I have attended one of her public speeches and the hatred she gets from the feral trans lobby is incredible to behold. She is a brave lady to put herself out there. She’s also not leading masked protests with megaphones in the same way. She’s just saying the quiet bit about women’s rights under Islamic doctrine — cousin marriage, how girls get treated, parallel justice systems. That makes her an awkward target. Charging her looks less like law enforcement and more like drawing a line around what you’re allowed to say about one particular ideology. And that ideology is Islam.
I was glad to see that Toby Young’s Free Speech Union will defend her. I am a member of the FSU for this very reason as I have no doubt that they will also come for people like me. At a recent FSU event that I attended, Toby was saying that cases involving criticism of Islam have now become the biggest single category of FSU work since Labour got in. Anyone surprised?
When we see the Government flirting with an official definition of “Islamophobia” or “anti-Muslim hostility,” and then we watch the police treat ordinary political speech as malicious communications, you don’t need a degree to see what is going on.
You just have to watch who gets the knock on the door and for what.
It goes without saying that no one is arguing that Posie Parker should be free to incite violence or organise harassment. She hasn’t. All that she is doing is arguing that certain Islamic ideas and practices don’t fit with the kind of free and equal society she wants for women. How is that “criminal”? Indeed how is it even provocative?
When I was a child, I was taught that sticks and stones could break my bones but names could never hurt me. This Government has decided that some sticks are special and must not be named. If that view is accepted, then the next step is obvious: keep going after the people who refuse to stop naming them. And throw them in prison.
Tommy was their first target and he gets sentenced mid-December. It seems likely he will go to prison. Danny Tommo is in the mix and, despite not being convicted of any alleged crime, is behind bars. Posie is next in the queue.
If this charge sticks, the message to everyone else is simple enough. Islam cannot be criticised or else. That’s not the rule of law. That’s de facto blasphemy, enforced selectively, aimed at the people who think for themselves.
