UK Parliament / Open data

Security of Elected Representatives

I thank the hon. Lady for the question. We are not abandoning our work on hate crime. May I just cover some of those issues in order?

First, I was talking about a definition of extremism, not of anti-Muslim hate, in response to the question from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). The Government are absolutely clear that racism in all its forms, including anti-Muslim hatred, is absolutely wrong, and there is no question about that. The only area of discussion has to be about how we deal with it, not whether we recognise it. We do recognise it.

As the hon. Lady recognises, hate crime in this country is sadly rising, and there are individuals who have faced the force of that from various different areas. Very sadly, many in the Muslim community, as she is aware, feel that hatred not from outside the community but from within it—from those who are trying to preach an extremist message of Islam that is not accepted within the Muslim community, let alone in other parts of the country.

We must be absolutely clear that this country protects someone’s status for who they are and not for what they happen to believe. There is freedom of belief and freedom of religious expression, which also means the freedom not to believe or to believe differently from one’s family or community. Those things are also protected.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
746 c476 
Session
2023-24
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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