Newsline 2 September 2016

Newsline 2 September 2016

Tomorrow we celebrate 150 years of the National Secular Society at our conference – Secularism 2016: Living better together. If you have a ticket we look forward to seeing you there, but if you can't come along, follow the day's speakers, debate and discussion on Twitter with the hashtag #Secularism2016.

As soon as the conference is over we'll get straight back to campaigning for a secular education system, freedom of speech and human rights. If you want to support our campaign work, consider joining the National Secular Society, or making a donation today. We rely entirely on our members and supporters for funds, and all donations are gratefully received.

If you have a ticket to our conference or gala dinner then we look forward to seeing you tomorrow for the highlight of our year.

News, Blogs & Opinion

Mayors defiant after French burkini ban suspended by Council of State

News | Tue, 30th Aug 2016

The majority of French mayors who have imposed 'burkini' bans are refusing to revoke them, despite a ruling from France's highest administrative court against the ban in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet.

The Council of State ruled that the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet "constituted a serious and manifestly illegal infringement of fundamental liberties".

The judgement said that "The emotion and the anxieties resulting from the terrorist attacks and especially the one committed in Nice on July 14, are not sufficient to justify legally the prohibition".

Bans that restrict individual freedoms can only be imposed if there were risks to public safety, the judgement said.

However the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet said that the judgement "will serve only to heighten tensions which will carry risks of trouble which we wanted to avoid" and many mayors are defying the court.

Gil Bernardi, the mayor of Le Lavandou, which also imposed a ban, said: "There are no burkinis on the beach [here] and we are making sure it stays that way. The beach is a place to relax, not a space for ideological or religious confrontation."

It is thought that around thirty towns have introduced bans on the Islamic swimwear, and a majority of the mayors have not lifted their ban after the Council of State's judgement.

Marwan Muhammad, the executive director of the Centre Against Islamophobia in France has vowed to force all towns to follow the ruling. "We will sue them in every single case," he said. "Until they abide by the law."

Republican politicians have offered their support for local bans and Nicholas Sarkozy said he would change France's constitution to ban the burkini if he was elected president.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement on Facebook that the debate about the garment was "not over" and that it was fair to denounce the burkini. He previously said that the burkini was "not compatible with the values of the French Republic".

The French government is split on the bans, with the Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem calling them "dangerous for national cohesion" – a statement which her Prime Minister criticised. Following the Education Minister's comments Valls described the burkini as "the enslavement of women."

Polling by YouGov found that 46% of voters in the UK support a ban on the burkini, with just 30% opposed. The same poll also found that 57% support banning the burka in public places in the UK.

See also:

The Conseil d'État and the "burkini ban"

Terry Sanderson – 'French secularism risks being destroyed by political ambition'

Living better together: French secularism risks being destroyed by political ambition

Opinion | Thu, 25th Aug 2016

Despite occasional conflicts, France's tradition of secularism has served both social cohesion and religious freedom well. Terry Sanderson argues that misusing secularism for political aims risks undermining both.

The French ban on so-called burkinis – all enveloping swim suits – raises all kinds of questions about the state's approach to secularism, identity politics and its growing Muslim minority. The civil authorities of a number of seaside resorts on the Mediterranean have decided the garment goes against their concept of secularism that is central to the French constitution.

Of course, this part of southern France is still reeling and traumatised from the events of Bastille Day in Nice when an Islamist fanatic used a lorry to kill 85 innocent revellers and maim 400 others on the promenade. In such a time many may have personal objections to what they see as a very noticeable statement of conservative Islamic identity. But transferring these personal views into political actions is problematic. Prime Minister Manuel Valls told La Provence newspaper last week "The burkini isn't a new line of bathing suit, a style. It's the translation of a political project, counter-society, notably founded on the servitude of the woman."

French secularism which seeks to avoid conflict between personal identity and civil law has rightly or wrongly become a source for such conflict. A small number of Muslim women, who think that their religion is more important than the civil law will resist the rules. And so now we are seeing increasingly unpleasant confrontations with the police who are tasked with enforcing the ban.

In Britain, of course, we have a much more laid back approach to religious clothing. Many people (some based on legitimate concerns and some based on prejudice) feel uncomfortable about full face-coverings or when they see women in niqabs in the street, but few feel the need to do anything about it and (outside of specific practical circumstances) few would be comfortable with the state preventing such practices.

In France, though, there is a very different response. The French do not permit face coverings in the streets, they do not permit religious symbols (and that includes crosses, hijabs and yarmulkas) in schools. They do not permit any public institution that provides food to ban pork from its kitchens.

Repeated challenges to these bans at the European Court of Human Rights have failed. The Court has ruled that France has the right to enforce these restrictions because a wide margin of appreciation makes it acceptable if the country thinks it necessary for living together harmoniously.

French secularism differs from the more liberal secularism of other European and North American traditions – noticeably almost every British and American secularist organisation of note is against the ban.

The French had to have a revolution to get the clerical classes off their backs and put the over-powerful Church in its place. They have since come to some kind of uneasy resolution with the Vatican that allows the churches and state to function almost independently – although for various historical reasons there are exceptions. For instance, some Catholic schools are publicly funded and all churches built before the passing of the 1905 law that separated church and state are maintained by the state, albeit partly in compensation for the buildings having been sequestered by the State during the revolution.

Despite its public pronouncements, the Catholic Church is no lover of secularism in France. It will gladly join any campaign to damage or destroy it. Like Islam it is prone to strands of totalitarian theology, with an unwavering belief that it has a god-given right to run the world. So, for the purpose of ridding France of the secularists, it will pragmatically join with Islamists in the attack.

But it is this very alliance that shows the importance of secularism. How can two such authoritarian regimes ever live together in peace when someday there may be the possibility of one or the other taking over and running the state? Both at base want a theocracy, but secularism prevents either having it.

The Catholic Church still has a place in the life of many French people, and the state does not interfere in its operation. Occasionally there are clashes as the Church tries to reassert its influence over political processes – as in the case of gay rights.

Sometimes there is a cross-over of concern, as when an Islamist fanatic killed a Catholic priest in his Church. At that time, President Hollande – a great defender of laïcité - met the Pope and said the message of France's secularism hoped to unite people, not to "wound," so "the Republic must defend the right to believe and also to not believe. When a religious figure is assassinated, the Republic is also profaned."

Unlike in Britain, with its established church, where many major national ceremonies, including the coronation, are held in cathedrals and overseen by priests, in France the Church has no place at state functions. When the Islamist attacks on Paris were commemorated, the President held the ceremony in a secular setting and priests were conspicuous by their absence.

Of course, church services were also held, but they were personal, for the benefit of the believers, and had no state input.

Now, though, many feel (again some for legitimate and some for prejudicial reasons that) Islam is increasingly asserting itself in France and it is a determined and powerful force, unused to compromise and frequently insistent on having its own way, which is not, for many, the French way.

France's colonial history means that it has a very large Muslim population, the largest in Europe, mainly from its former territories in North Africa. This population feels marginalised and discriminated against, and it has good grounds to feel this way.

The Associated Press quoted Rim-Sarah Alouane, an expert on Muslim issues at the University of Toulouse, as saying "Islamophobia is a new way to say I'm a patriot and that's the way I'll defend my country against you people who cannot integrate. Politicians are actually making sure the population does not integrate. They are making Muslims feel like that they cannot be French."

This is a narrative which serves the interests of both Islamists and anti-Muslim bigots.

Muslims say they find it difficult to get jobs because of religious and racial discrimination . At the same time, the mainstream population feels resentful at the apparent unwillingness of many Muslims to totally embrace French culture. The number of horrific attacks by Islamists perpetrated in recent years in France has done nothing to increase trust or improve relations.

Of course, this is not entirely true. Countless Muslims have made their home in France – indeed generations have been born there - and come to love the country, its traditions, language and culture. They have integrated while still holding on to their faith as a private matter.

But as the world-wide Islamist insurgence intensifies, the confrontations will grow stronger. Muslims feel like victims and outsiders in what is, for many of them, the country of their birth. Meanwhile, much of the mainstream population who are non-religious or religiously unconcerned, feel that Muslim religious demands are undermining their concept of France.

It is fertile breeding ground for far right groups like the Front National which is using its own twisted version of laïcité as a rallying cry not only for those worried by the growth of Islamism but also for the straightforwardly racist. As one academic put it, it seeks to turn laïcité into an "instrument of Islamophobia" and confrontation.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National says: "I'm absolutely not afraid to be called anti-Muslim because I'm not." She says that the anti-Muslim feeling that is growing is the result of "political-religious groups" who want to install Sharia law in France and use "massive immigration" to do so.

"We don't have problems with Islam," she said. But "France has Christian roots. They [the French] want to recognize their own country, recognize their lifestyle, their habits, their traditions."

This is a potent message that has become ever more popular in the parts of France where large Muslim populations are making a big impact on communities, and where Islamist radicals have been active in stoking resentment.

The present Government of Francois Hollande has seen, and been alarmed by, the growing influence of the Front National and seems to be responding by claiming to be the true secularist. But in trying to compete with Marine Le Pen for votes, Hollande and his government risk having to embrace her skewed understanding of secularism as being a tool to control and disadvantage Muslims.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who is running in next year's election in France, has written a book in which he addresses the issue of Islam in France. He makes quite clear that he thinks Islam (not Islamism or extremism) is the problem, pure and simple. He says that no other religion causes the problems that Islam does.

The danger now is that French secularism becomes a political football that will cause it to be redefined as anti-religious and particularly anti-Islamic. Its great potential for uniting the country will be sacrificed on the altar of electoral ambition.

Laïcité, that noble aim to treat all citizens as equals, is under threat not only from its Islamist and Catholic challengers, but also from politicians who will ruthlessly misuse it for electoral gain.

Terry Sanderson is the president of the National Secular Society. The views expressed in our blogs are those of the author, and may not represent the views of the National Secular Society. You can follow Terry on Twitter: @TerrySanderson4

NSS welcomes calls for more sophisticated approach to extremism and radicalisation

News | Thu, 25th Aug 2016

The National Secular Society has tentatively welcomed parts of a report by the Home Affairs Committee on counter extremism and radicalisation. The report recommends further resources being expended on intelligence for better co-ordination. It calls for both the Government and civil-society to develop a "more sophisticated approach" to "identifying the factors which instigate radicalisation and in the measures it takes to tackle [extremism]."The report has however been criticised by counter-extremism experts.

The report drew on evidence community, academic, governmental and business representatives and focuses on online recruitment and extremism. Between February 2010 and the start of 2016, the Committee reported, the Metropolitan Police removed more than 120,000 pieces of terrorist-related content. However the effectiveness of such methods is far from clear.

Keith Porteous Wood, NSS executive director, said "Civil society has been slow to recognise the dangers of online radicalisation and extremism and we're glad to see attempts to rectify this. However, little if any attention had been made to consider risks to freedom of expression, which is a pre-requisite of democracy."

The report recommends, for example, that journalists "do not identify terrorists as Muslims, but as terrorists and followers of Daesh" (Islamic State). The report voices concern about "unbalanced or unsubstantiated reporting" in relation to stories about extremism and terrorism. Mr Wood said that "politicians telling journalists not to mention the identities of terrorists was bordering on Orwellian", but accepted that civil society had a strong responsibility to differentiate between Islam and Islamism, something both Islamists and anti-Muslim bigots deliberately conflate.

The report states that there "must be a zero tolerance approach to online extremism" but then acknowledges that "the Home Office has itself acknowledged that finding meaningful definitions is proving problematic," after years of trying.

The NSS and the Christian Institute, leading members of the Defend Free Speech campaign (DFS), have previously warned that the Government's approach to extremism risks creating unnecessary and draconian laws which undermine freedom of expression, and even make it possible to outlaw the expression of views that a future Government simply doesn't like. DFS is convinced that innocent people will fall foul of the proposed Terrorism Bill for merely holding unpopular, traditional or challenging views.

The report examines significant failings in the Government's counter extremism strategies, including the Prevent programme – which has been undermined both by genuine examples of overzealous scrutiny of ordinary Muslims and by scare stories generated by the anti-Prevent lobby.

The report was criticised by the Quilliam Foundation, a counter extremism think tank, which said it "misses an opportunity to make progressive recommendations for the Prevent strategy, such as an independent review and an oversight board. Instead, it focuses on peripheral issues like renaming the strategy, or insisting that 'Daesh' is used instead of 'so-called Islamic State'. We are united with other counter-extremism experts in thinking this report fails in meeting its main objectives and that its recommendations would not enable progress."

The report suggests that poor quality and inconsistent Prevent training could lead to schools closing down difficult discussions or using simplistic stereotypes to misidentify students as being at risk of radicalisation. However the report made few recommendations on sharing best practices or improving working with external partners.

Haras Rafiq, Managing Director of Quilliam, told the Committee that this undermined efforts to foster trust and that genuine dialogue with communities not carried out "through the lens of security and legislation"—would help. The Committee reiterated calls to replace "Prevent" with a more community oriented "Engage" strategy.

Efforts to disrupt online extremism are far more likely to lead to internet services and social media providers wrongly targeting some groups while others operate below the surface when efforts to disrupt online extremism are clumsily handled by the state, perhaps because of an inadequate understanding of the fast evolving extremism and counter-extremism narratives and language.

To counter this, Mr Wood said, the report, "should have included a longer term perspective which asks why extremist narratives may appeal to some young people, particularly from Muslim backgrounds, and why others are increasingly rejecting fundamental values."

At meetings of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights last year, Mr Wood argued that positive action to confront systemic problems of religious segregation including in education and promoting robust freedom of expression protections were essential in upholding fundamental values, and in confronting extremism and hate speech.

Religious privilege undermines abuse victims’ access to justice

Opinion | Mon, 22nd Aug 2016

Richard Scorer, a specialist child abuse lawyer at Slater & Gordon draws attention to organisations seeking more lenient treatment over child abuse-connected matters because they are religious and makes the case for no concessions being given.

Which is more important: religious freedom, or safeguarding children from abuse? Should churches and religious organisations be exempt from secular standards of child protection? Two recent court cases involving the Jehovah's Witnesses raise this issue in its starkest form.

Some background. Over the past two decades a significant number of abuse cases have emerged in the Jehovah's Witnesses. Clients of mine who allege they have been abused within the organisation describe a culture which is profoundly collusive with child abuse. It's hard enough for abused children to speak out in any setting; in the Jehovah's Witnesses, it's bordering on the impossible. The organisation is notorious for its "two witness" rule: anyone who accuses an adult of abuse must have a corroborating witness. Since the vast majority of child abuse occurs in secret, the effect of this rule is to silence abuse victims. Moreover, if there is no corroborating witness, the complainant is often treated as having made a false accusation. This leads to the complainant being "disfellowshipped", or ostracised by other Witnesses. A terrifying prospect if, like most children growing up in the Jehovah's Witnesses, your entire family life revolves around them. In this way, victims say, the culture of the Jehovah's Witnesses facilitates and protects abusers.

The two legal cases have opened a window into this culture. The cases involve the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the legal entity through which the Jehovah's Witnesses operate. One case concerns the Watch Tower Society's liability to pay damages to a proven victim of abuse. The Society sought to argue that its devolved structure means that it cannot be 'vicariously liable' for the actions of its officials who abuse children. It's a variation of the argument advanced by the Catholic Church, which maintained for many years that priests were not employees and therefore the Church could not be liable for their actions. The Catholic Church's long running battle to evade responsibility on that basis ended in failure in 2012. The Watch Tower Society's defence failed at first instance in 2015, and its attempt to take the case to the Court of Appeal was dismissed last month.

Meanwhile, in 2014, in response to emerging allegations of child abuse, the Charity Commission instigated a statutory inquiry into the Watch Tower Society's approach to safeguarding. Quite reasonably, the Commission wants to understand whether the Society's trustees have fulfilled their safeguarding responsibilities under charity law. Also, the Commission sought production of relevant documents. Rather than cooperate with the inquiry (as one would expect of an organisation with nothing to hide), the Society applied for a judicial review at the High Court to try to abort the inquiry and resist the production order. The Society argued (amongst other things) that the Charity Commission was "interfering with (the Society's) rights of freedom of religion under article 9 of the Human Rights Act... by commencing an inquiry with a view to changing Jehovah's Witnesses' religious practices". In other words, if the purpose of the Charity Commission inquiry was to ensure that the Society is complying with secular safeguarding norms, this violates religious freedom.

In March this year the Watch Tower Society lost its application for judicial review. But as often seems to happen in English law when an issue of serious social importance falls to be decided, the matter became bogged down in an obscure technical argument; on this occasion, about whether the Society had pursued the correct legal avenue in seeking to challenge the Commission's decision. The Court of Appeal decided that it hadn't. The Society's subsequent attempt to pursue the matter to the Supreme Court also failed. The underlying question- which comes first, religious freedom or the protection of children from abuse- will have to wait for another day.

Following the Court of Appeal decision, the Charity Commission urged that the Watch Tower Society "engage constructively" with the inquiry. Anyone affected by safeguarding issues in the Jehovah's Witnesses should contact the Commission's lead investigator; a number of my clients are providing input to the inquiry. But the Society simply said that it was "looking at the ruling carefully and evaluating where we can go next". So we can probably expect more attempts to stall the inquiry and resist proper scrutiny. But at least these court cases have had a beneficial side effect: they are raising public awareness both of the issue of child abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the wider issue of religious organisations and churches pleading a religious justification for evading basic norms of child safeguarding. The Catholic Church in Australia for example, (but not Britain) has successfully evaded being sued for clerical abuse for decades on the ridiculous premise that it is not a legal entity – which has not stood in the way of it operating bank accounts or receiving legacies.

In Australia, hearings in the Royal Commission on child sexual abuse exposed the Witnesses' culpability in protecting abusers in a devastating fashion; the Royal Commission heard that their safeguarding procedures were "woefully deficient". Here, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, now chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, needs to link with the Charity Commission inquiry and undertake a thorough investigation into culture and practices within the organisation.

If the Jehovah's Witnesses imagine that they can escape scrutiny of their safeguarding failures, I am certain they will be proved wrong. The courts have certainly given them short shrift. But in exposing what has happened, we need to nail the central issue once and for all: child protection is more important than religious expression. Religious organisations need to obey the law of the land, just like everyone else. When it comes to child abuse, religious exceptionalism needs to stop.

Richard Scorer, a specialist child abuse lawyer at Slater & Gordon. Follow him on Twitter @Richard_Scorer. The views expressed in our blogs are those of the author and may not represent the views of the NSS.