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Samizdata quote of the day – defying blasphemy laws There is no offence of blasphemy in our law. Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive. The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset. The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.
We live in a liberal democracy. One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so. The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.
– Justice Bennathan
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1. Let’s see if the Crown appeals.
2. The process is the punishment.
3. Where can I buy an insurance policy on Justice Bennathan?
Just how, genuinely, upset are Muslims by such desecrations?
Or is it taken as a an excuse to get angry, demonstrate and get the powers to allow more Shariah law into the system? Is it just an excuse to whip-up mass hysteria?
What language was this burnt Qu’ran in? This matters because the true Qu’ran has to be in C7th Arabic. Any translation (even of short quotes) always has appended to it “interpretation of meaning”. So, essentially, if it isn’t a Quran in C7th Arabic (as first compiled by Abu Bakr and finalised by Uthman – 1st and 3rd of the 4 “rightly guided caliphs”) it’s just a crib-sheet for the real thing.
Nick:
The points you are making are intellectually valid. Sadly, they seem not to occur to nutters who grab bread knives to slash at people who have the temerity to burn a copy of their favourite fairy tale.
Still, let us take heart that there is still one judge left who is not a Common Purpose social justice warrior.
I remember, quite a few years ago, a US politician said that burning the Koran should be illegal. He was called out on it in a video by a woman who tore pages out of it, read out various passages and then burned the relevant page. She also gave her address out and invited any Muslims who had a problem with this to come and get her, her family had a big collection of guns. As far as I know there weren’t any takers.
Lets see if this has any impact on the upcoming Islamaphobia laws, which I strongly suspect will lead to Islamic blasphemy laws by the back door.
You can’t hate Labour and the Tories enough.
Fuck Dominic Grieve especially.
Thanks Dan,
I fear I shall never get the image of sexual relations with Dominic Grieve out of my head…
Credit where credit is due – I, and others, have condemned British judges in the past – so it is only right that we praise Justice Bennathan for doing his job and upholding law and justice.
I do not support burning the Koran (or any book) – get that out of the way first. As even Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) has repeatedly said – we should be reading the Koran (as long as it is accurately translated – not a whitewash translation), NOT burning it.
However, to burn a book, even in public as a protest, is not a crime – as long as the book is your own (you have not stolen it) and you do not break any fire regulations (you are not causing a risk of spreading a fire) and you do not create a mess.
And the man who engaged in the protest was attacked – attacked by a follower of Islam who went to get a knife (so it was not a spur of the moment thing) said he was going to kill the protester – and then lied to the police about what he had done, even sending a picture to the police of a butter knife – pretending that this was the knife he used, when it was, in fact, a bread knife – well capable of murdering the man he was trying to murder.
Yet the follower of Islam was not even charged with attempted murder (which he was clearly guilty of, he went to get the knife – and came back with it, and used it – saying he was going to kill the protester, it was an open and shut case of attempted murder) – and he was not sent to prison.
We should also remember that the government has said it is going to make “Islamophobia” a “crime” (under the Thomas Hobbes idea that the definition of a “crime” is something the state forbids – which is Legal Positivism, not consistent with Natural Justice and the Common Law).
Both the Conservative Party and the Reform Party have complained about the “definition” of “Islamophobia”, but the “definition” is a red herring – YES Dominic Grieve is an utterly vile (despicable) human being, but that distracts attention from the point of principle here – the problem is NOT the “definition” of “Islamophobia” – the “problem” is the concept of “Islamophobia”.
Under any “definition” of “Islamophobia” Gladstone, Winston Churchill and many others (indeed most people who wrote about Islam before the modern age of ignorance) who wrote about Islam, would be sent to prison.
Let’s celebrate the existence of Justice Bennathan. The judgement is quite pointed!
Clovis Sangrail – yes indeed Sir.
“We do not, most of us, respect Islam any more than we respect people who speak in tongues. What we respect is the right of Muslims to practise their religion in perfect peace, in so far as it does not conflict with our laws. We also hope that we can find common ground with them in many other aspects of human existence: in business, in the professions, in literature and so forth. Tolerance is not a matter of respecting what is tolerated – if it were, tolerance would hardly be necessary. Tolerance is the willing, conscious suppression of distaste or disdain for other people’s ideas, habits and tastes for the sake of a wider social peace.”
“Muslims should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticize, lampoon, ridicule and mock Mohammed to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Islam and Muslims have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else; they are, after all, spoilt for choice, at least in theory.”
– Theodore Dalrymple
The quote is perfect. Nothing further to add!
JJM and Theodore Dalrymple (although the latter is very unlikely to read this).
For a follower of Islam to “practice their religion” they must obey its principles – which include expanding its power and making sure that infidels feel themselves subdued (i.e. under Islamic authority).
This can be “perfectly peaceful” – IF (if) non Muslims submit.
As for “mocking Mohammed” – the penalty for that for a man is death, there is some debate about lesser penalties for women, but for a man the penalty is death.
They do not seek to “go somewhere else” as they hold the the world was created by Allah and, therefore, should be under the authority of Islam.
For example, removing (by force – and it was the Israeli government that did this) all Jews from Gaza in 2005 did not produce peace – it could not, as there were still non Islamic areas to expand into (by tunnels or some other means) – October 7th 2023 just being the largest of many attacks. Remember Islam places no special value on, say, Tel Aviv – yes they believe it should be under the authority of the followers of Allah, that is the Islamic view, but so should London, New York and-so-on.
Someone who claims to follow Islam but does NOT follow its principles, Mohammed defined as a “hypocrite” and held that they should be executed.
A difficulty is that Western authorities, religious as well as secular, have a hatred of the truth (and not just about Islam) and tend to persecute people who tell the truth – which the authorities call “Hate Speech”.
I doubt that most of the high-ups in Western “mainstream” churches really believe in the basic doctrines of Christianity – for example that Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead, and that each individual person will survive death and face judgement for their sins after death. It is more likely that they define Christianity as “being nice” (ever more government spending and regulations), and “treating people with respect” (Hate Speech laws, DEI Equity and Open Borders).
Islamic scholars are very different – they treat Islam very seriously and teach that it should be followed.
Tobias Ellwood (ex Member of Parliament – and connected to the British Army disinformation unit that behaved so disgracefully during Covid) had been on “right wing” GB News again this morning.
For once Mr Ellwood spared us his ranting about being a “Global Citizen” and the wonders of the “Rules Based International Order” (and the rest of the totalitarian Agenda 2030 tap dance) – but he did say that “ordinary Muslims” should rise up and crush a certain ideology.
Mr Ellwood then went on to describe this “ideology” – and what he described was Islam, as taught and practiced by Mohammed and taught and practiced by Islamic scholars, and those who follow them, ever since.
So what Mr Ellwood was saying was that followers of Islam (Muslims) should crush Islam.
The utter absurdity of the international establishment (of which Mr Ellwood is a typical example) is, yet again, revealed.
Dalrymple channeling Tommy Robinson – or is it the other way round?
“If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else”
———————–
Dalrymple frames it in pretty intellectual words, but has reached the same conclusion as Robinson.
Much of the pearl-clutching is class-related.
Muslims are not fit for liberal Western society until Islam has its own Reformation.
This cannot be said in bien-pensant society, but is undeniably true.
The Western establishment just spent 20 years losing to Islam in Afghanistan and other places – all the fancy weapons and computers proved useless without a clear understanding of Islam.
Yet, from listening to Mr Ellwood and others, it is clear that the international Corporate State establishment has learned NOTHING – they still think in terms of “a few extremists who have twisted and perverted a peaceful religion”.
The rulers of the West, including those who control the “mainline” churches, are totally ignorant of the most basic things – and their reaction to anyone who tries to warn them, is to call the people warning them “ists” and “phobes” and to viciously persecute them.
It is hard, very hard, to see how the West is going to survive – which indicates that it is probable that the West will NOT survive.
As for the international celebrations of the deal with Hamas and other groups – including celebrations in Israel (“we have got the hostages back!”).
I do not trust myself to comment further – as I fear that my anger may get the better of me.
A Catholic priest in Spain is facing up to three years in prison for verbally opposing Islam – for speaking against Islam, i.e. for doing his job as a Christian priest (a priest who actually believes in Christianity – so NOT the sort of person likely to be made a Bishop or higher).
Yet when someone says there might not be Freedom of Speech or Freedom of Religion (which is NOT the same as Freedom of Worship) in the modern West – figures such as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, absurdly, declare that there is.
“Speech is violence” we are told – but actual violence is NOT violence, such as the two adopted children (NEITHER a Muslim I must add) who stabbed and burned their leftist politician adopted mother, were NOT guilty of attempted murder – because one of them is from Africa and the other is from Haiti.
To accuse them of being bad, for robbing, torturing, stabbing, burning, trying to kill, the German women who (foolishly) adopted them, would be “racist”.
Ben David – “till Islam has its own Reformation”.
Firstly Martin Luther and John Calvin did not move Christianity away from the theology of Augustine – they were both ultra supporters of Augustine (Predestination and all), they were “more Augustine than Augustine himself” – so they were not very helpful in relation to this matter.
As for persecution of dissent – far from Augustine condemning religious persecution, he was the theologian who developed the theology that justified persecution. So a return to strictly following Augustine was hardly going to mean LESS religious persecution.
But also – what do you mean by an Islamic “Reformation”? The term “Reformation” means, if it means anything, getting back to core doctrines that have been obscured or corrupted by time and usage.
And that is precisely what groups such as the Taliban and Hamas (and so on) are about.
What is it about “Islam is the teachings of Mohammed and his personal example – what he did” that you do not understand Sir?
And Muslims, followers of Islam, getting closer to what Mohammed taught and what he personally did (and ordered others to do) is the problem – not the solution.
“A difficulty is that Western authorities, religious as well as secular, have a hatred of the truth.”
Different subject but Ray Sanders, the guy who has exposed the UK Met Office using poor quality and even invented data in order to keep climate alarmism alive, has been accused of spreading disinformation. What Sanders is saying is demonstrably true, spreading disinformation is precisely what the Met Office has been doing.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/washington-times-catch-up-with-met-office-shenanigans/
Stonyground – yes spreading disinformation is very much the work of the international corporate state – most certainly including the British branch of it.
For example, the unit called the 77th Brigade of the British Army (of Tobias Ellwood and co) is supposed to be about countering disinformation – but Covid showed that its real purpose is to push disinformation and counter the truth.
Just to second what Paul Marks has written about Islam and ‘Reformation’, Islam has had periodic ‘Reformations’ during its history, when the accretions of various forms of ‘corruption’ (such as an excessively relaxed tolerance of others’ beliefs, to the point of religious syncretism in some places) have been rejected and swept away. Christianity’s Reformation was also about sweeping away corruption (the selling of indulgences being the clichéd example but also the accretion of doctrines not strictly founded on the Biblical text). There’s a very simplistic view among many in the West that Christianity’s Reformation was above all a step on the road to Enlightenment. It really wasn’t, although things like translating the Bible into vernacular languages were certainly part of a move towards greater engagement by a much larger part of the population in the world of ideas. But, that aside, the main thing to worry about when people start obsessing about ‘getting back to basics’ is what those basics are.
Where Islam is concerned, it’s truly the last thing anyone (including the unfortunates born into the Islamic world) needs.
When Reform are forced to purge the Supreme Court and elements of the judiciary more brodly, Mr Justice Bennathan should be considered for Master of the Rolls.
Mary Contrary – that is an idea.
AFT – exactly.
And anyone who claims that Jesus and Mohammed were similar in their conduct, or taught the same, or similar, things, is either ignorant – or a liar.
Of course Jesus and Muhammed were very different in character, actions and preaching. You don’t need to be a theolgian to know this. You just need to know a little history. Jihads and crusades and all that! I know that sounds flippant but I think it’s OK to make a flippant rebuttal to an idiotic staement.
For some reason a poem springs to mind. This was given to me by a Christian friend over 30 years ago and I still remember. I don’t buy the entire thing (just almost all of it)…
– Steve Turner
I appreciate the poem’s use of the word “man” is deeply offensive to, amongst others, puppygirls…
“Puppygirls” are basically adult males whose lifestyle/sexual kink is believing they are lesbian puppies. Yes, that is a thing. I Googled it so you don’t have to. I’m socially liberal but… I guess the big question is if we lock ’em up – is it in Broadmoor or Battersea?
NickM
Yes – but to write what you have written is either illegal in the United Kingdom, or it soon will be.
We both know that, for example, that under any “definition” of “Islamophobia” – both Gladstone and Winston Churchill would have been “guilty” – this is why the arguments about “definition” are a red herring, it is the PRINCIPLE of making opposition to Islam a “crime” that is wrong.
And these “opinion crimes” go back a long way – all the way back to the 1965 Act, although such Acts as that of 1968, 1976 and 2000 made the situation worse and worse.
Britain, and other Western nations, did not march towards tyranny by accident – it was quite deliberate, and their were a Legion of academic advisers (each doing their little bit) pushing this nation towards making dissent against “Progressive” political and cultural positions, “criminal”.
Indeed if we go by the Legal Positivist definition of “crime” pushed by Thomas Hobbes, namely that “law” is just the commands of the state and “crime” is anything the state says it is, then there is nothing wrong with the modern position – so this madness goes back way before Marxism.
As I have tried to point out so many times – if we follow the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and others, we do NOT get to the Bill or Rights (British or American), or Magna Carta, or anything like that – as such philosophy leads to a very different place.
It leads to where we now are – and to the Hell we are going to.
“We live in a liberal democracy” – from what I read, the good Justice is mistaken in his statement. Unless he were to add, “Until recently…”
If freedom in the UK isn’t over, it will soon be. When will you rise up?
GregWA
As you know a democracy is where the people, either directly or via the people they elect, can change basic policies – and the United Kingdom is, sadly, a good example of the system supported by the International Community where, regardless of the election results, officials, including most (although NOT all – as this case shows) judges, and “experts” make sure that leftist (“Progressive”) policies continue to be followed.
“When will you rise up?”
The British people are unarmed and helpless – and the state is ruthless, last summer (2024) there were protests – but people were sent to prison (for years) for such crimes as saying “scum” to the police (the person who was sent to prison for that, even though it was the police who attacked him – not the other way round, was abused in prison till he killed himself – British prisons, like all other institutions here, have fundamentally changed), or just for being in “the wrong place at the wrong time” – say walking past a protest, or even not being at a protest at all and writing a post on social media.
It must be stressed that it was only “right-wing” “riots” that are treated this way – leftist riots (at the same time) were treated totally differently, and people who said that right wing people should have their throats cut, were NOT sent to prison.
For example, someone who wrote that he did not wish British girls to be raped by migrants, was sent to prison – “your words clearly require a custodial sentence” said the judge (in his tyrannical insanity – which is common to the system as a whole).
“Rise up” – how?