Arts News
Writers Want Meeting About New Religious Hatred Law
By Amy Somensky
Jan 15, 2005, 4:30 GMT

Salman Rushdie

UK: The Home Office has caved into pressure from some of Britain's leading writers to hold a meeting to discuss their fears that a proposed new law on inciting religious hatred will hurt artistic liberty.

Salman Rushdie and more than 200 writers signed a letter from the writers' group English Pen. The letter was sent to the home secretary, Charles Clarke, earlier this month.

English Pen said Rushdie had received a response from home office minister Fiona Mactaggart and that they hoped the meeting would take place within the next week. Rushdie, who is a vice president of the group, and other representatives of Pen will attend.

The recent demonstrations and cancellation of the play Bezhti, by a Sikh writer, and the demonstrations over the showing of Jerry Springer the Opera on BBC2 have caused the writers concern.

In the letter to Clarke, the writers said that the legislation would "make it illegal to express what some might consider to be provocative views on religion". It could, they say, serve as a "sanction for censorship of a kind which would constrain writers and impoverish cultural life".

A Home Office spokesman told The Guardian that: "Both Fiona Mactaggart and the home secretary understand the concerns some groups feel about this legislation and are happy to have meetings to discuss these and reassure them."

In a letter to the Guardian published on January 6, Rushdie wrote: "The continuing collapse of liberal, democratic, secular and humanist principles in the face of the increasingly strident demands of organised religions is perhaps the most worrying aspect of life in contemporary Britain."

In response, Mactaggart wrote a letter to the Guardian in which she said: "Free speech is a crucial right for everyone, faith groups as well as artists. For many years the law has established that free speech rights do not licence people to stir up hatred of others on the basis of their race.

"Now we are seeking to offer the same protection to people targeted because of their faith. This is not religious appeasement, but a responsible reaction to the tactics of those, especially from the extreme right, who would foster community tension by stirring up hatred of members of a faith group."