“We don’t live in Pakistan; we don’t live in Saudi Arabia. I am Christian and by default I believe that Muhammad is a false prophet. I should be allowed to say that in the UK without being stabbed or repeatedly arrested.”

So said Christian evangelist Hatun Tash upon the Metropolitan Police paying her £10,000 in damages and costs for being unlawfully arrested and strip searched after having her copy of the Qur’an stolen from her at Speakers’ Corner.

It is extraordinary that such things even need to be said. Do the police really need to be reminded that we are not living in an Islamic nation? Must they need reminding that it is not an offence in Great Britain to express in the most robust terms that Muhammad is a false prophet? To offend is not to commit an offence.

I am a Christian and therefore I certainly believe that Muhammad is a false prophet. Given that at the last census only 6.5 per cent of the population identified as Muslim, it follows that 93.5 per cent of Britons agree with me that Muhammad was not — or, at least, was probably not — a prophet of God.

Yet Hatun Tash has been arrested several times for saying so. She has been held overnight and even strip searched. The police do seem to realise that there is no law they can use against her though, since each time she has been arrested, she has later been released without charge. 

With the help of the Christian Legal Centre, Hatun has taken legal action against the police for wrongful arrest and breach of her human rights. The police paid her £10,000 in compensation in 2022 for two wrongful arrests, and also issued an apology. Last week it was announced that they have paid another £10,000 for a further wrongful arrest and detainment with a strip search. No apology has been forthcoming this time, however.

Meanwhile, Hatun has been hit, dragged to the floor, had her glasses broken, and had books stolen from her. Sometimes she has been assaulted in full view of the police. In 2021 she narrowly survived a stabbing attack by a man wearing a black Islamic robe who was clearly aiming at her neck. She collapsed with blood running down her face and arm. She was taken to hospital to get her wounds treated. As Hatun herself has said: “Watching the video, the intention is clearly to kill me.”

Yet none of her assailants has ever been arrested. Even when assaults are carried out in broad daylight in front of police, with video footage and multiple requests to take action, the police do nothing. This is two-tier policing at its worst. It is worth reading Hatun’s own words about this:

I have been dealing with two-tiered policing for years. Muslim mobs at Speakers’ Corner are above the law and have been allowed by the police to do what they like to silence debate, increasingly by any means.

I have been treated appallingly by the police and have been repeatedly humiliated when I had not done anything wrong.

The police, as usual, just did exactly what the Muslim mob wanted them to do. They even sided with the men who had stolen my property and to this day have taken no action.

The police have repeatedly taken away my rights and told me that they cannot protect me because they do not want to offend a certain group of people.

This is two tier policing in action. The police are afraid of a Muslim mob, and so dare not arrest, let alone charge Muslims for blatant breaches of the law. It is easier to arrest the Christian evangelist, even if they end up having to pay compensation later.

Is this how policing should operate? Facilitating mob rule? Is Speakers’ Corner Sharia Corner. Police arrest Christians who criticise Muhammad at Speakers’ Corner as if we are living in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. As if we have an Islamic blasphemy law.

But we are not an Islamic nation, and we do not have an Islamic blasphemy law in place – as yet. Recently, however, there have been renewed calls for the government to formally adopt the APPG definition of Islamophobia. The APPG’s 2018 report defined Islamophobia as follows:

Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.

There are so many problems with this definition that it is hard to know where to start. Suffice for now to say that “perceived Muslimness” is a catch-all phrase that means that anything you say about Islam, let alone Muslims, could be perceived as being Islamophobic, and therefore by this definition actually is Islamophobic. Criticism of Muhammad could be perceived as Islamophobic and would therefore be Islamophobic by this definition. 

This is not a rational definition of Islamophobia to adopt. Yet it has been formally adopted by the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish Green Party amongst others. This means that any member of these political parties knows they risk suspension or worse if anything they say is deemed “Islamophobic”. Most MPs today are therefore bound by what is in effect an Islamic blasphemy code. That is a disturbing state for this country to reach.

Earlier this year, I wrote a report for the Free Speech Union entitled: Banning Islamophobia: Blasphemy by the Backdoor. Professor Richard Dawkins was kind enough to write the foreword. The point is that whilst today we are not living in a country with an Islamic blasphemy law, we are perilously close to that happening. The majority of our MPs are members of political parties which already enforce the APPG definition of Islamophobia which is an effective Islamic blasphemy code. If it was put to vote on whether to formally adopt the APPG definition of Islamophobia in law, I fully expect that this parliament would adopt it.

For once then, the police may be ahead of the curve in enforcing Islamic blasphemy. But ahead of the curve is not where the police are supposed to be. They should enforce the law as it stands, not as it may become. Meanwhile, politicians and others need to realise how close we are to adopting Islamic blasphemy into law. Where then for Christian evangelists like Hatun? Then it won’t just be arrest, but prison too, for criticising Islam.