Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

moved Amendment No. 3A*:"Page 3, line 10, at end insert ““and shall include the desecration of symbols or sacramental objects that are important to such a group of persons””" The noble Lord said: The amendment is to the schedule and would extend the meaning of religious hatred. The schedule states that,"““‘religious hatred’ means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief””." My amendment would add the need to take into account the desecration of sacred objects. I say at the outset that my amendment does not reflect my party’s policy, but I want to explain my concern about recent events that have done serious harm to the religious beliefs of our different faith communities. Two recent events demonstrate how inadequately we deal with hatred of this kind. Last week we learned that more than 40 Muslim graves were desecrated in Birmingham. It is easy to deal with such matters as criminal damage, or to use other legal means, but the underlying hurt does irreparable damage to our faith communities. The shockwaves of what happened in Birmingham were felt across the whole country. The second incident was reported in our national newspapers only yesterday. I am aware that the matter is under investigation by the Metropolitan Police, but suffice it to say that an allegation has been made by a Muslim man that a police officer desecrated his Koran by throwing it into a rubbish bin when arresting him. The incident is alleged to have happened last Monday in south London, and the man also alleges that he was assaulted while being detained at his home. Muslims believe that a copy of the Koran is sacred and must be treated with respect. Throwing it in the bin could be viewed as a grave insult amounting to desecration. I shall not go further into that case, but we await the outcome of the investigation undertaken by the Metropolitan Police. There are other examples that are hurtful to the community. All of us are aware of the alleged mishandling of the holy Koran where the US military confirm that it had identified five incidents in which the holy book was mishandled by American personnel at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The report sparked protests across the Muslim world. In Afghanistan, riots resulted in at least 15 deaths. I do not believe that we shall ever find out whether the holy Koran was flushed down the toilet, but it is not disputed that such incidents create extreme hurt to our Muslim community. There are incidents of pig heads being left outside Mosques. It is only recently that prison officers who deal with Muslim inmates have understood how to handle the holy book. It is not uncommon that even the most gentle inmates become violent when their religious beliefs are hurt. Another incident relates to some Christian fanatics who vandalised a Hindu temple. Two young white men reportedly intruded into a temple service in Ealing Road, in London. One of the men snatched the microphone and shouted that there was only one God and that the congregation was stupid to worship a stone. They then shook the idol until it was broken. The Hindu community was deeply offended that its sacred images were desecrated by those two persons. Of course we could argue that there are powers to deal with religiously aggravated criminal damage cases. In this case the Hindu community said that it had lost confidence in the ability of the CPS to prosecute in such cases. The community has a list of regular incidents from 1993 in which temples and festivals have been vandalised. Very few of such incidents have resulted in prosecution. Jewish cemeteries are regularly vandalised. Synagogues have been painted with swastikas and headstones covered with anti-Semitic graffiti. There are powers to deal with religiously aggravated criminal damage, but they fail to take into account the wider insecurity of communities that feel that their hurt is never clearly understood or dealt with. The Government were keen to tell the Muslim community about the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, and we all know about the letter sent by the Home Secretary to the mosques in this country prior to the election. I very much hope that the Home Secretary will write a further letter to the mosques and temples saying what the Home Office is doing to protect the beliefs of religious minorities in this country. I beg to move.