The drive for ‘religious literacy’ in the media would undermine press freedom

Posted: Wed, 12th May 2021

A parliamentary report has called for measures to promote 'religious literacy' in the media - including tighter regulation. Chris Sloggett says we should beware the risks of requiring journalists to tread on eggshells.

"We are calling for a fundamental shift in a media culture that is either too dismissive or disdainful of religion."

So say Yasmin Qureshi MP and the crossbench peer Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, on a recent report from a parliamentary group they lead, in PoliticsHome.

The report - the somewhat patronisingly titled 'Learning to listen', from the all-party parliamentary group on religion in the media - argues that there is a lack of 'religious literacy' in the media, this is a significant problem and measures should be taken to address it.

The report speaks of the importance of "shared values and social cohesion". Its authors also say they "entirely agree" that the media should be free to criticise beliefs. And there's no reason to doubt their sincerity. But the "fundamental shift" they propose would push a censorious pro-religious agenda on the press.

A particular concern is the report's recommendation that training providers should incorporate 'religious literacy' training into their qualifications. The APPG appears to consider religion an important enough subject to justify this treatment, but this is unconvincing. Should a journalist who has no interest in covering religious affairs be forced to care about them?

And what does this 'religious literacy' look like? At one point the report acknowledges that genuine religious literacy involves a critical understanding of religion's positive and negative impact. But a telling line arrives when the authors try to define the term.

"In practice," they say, "we think that religious literacy also incorporates respect for religion and belief as a valid source of guidance and knowledge to the majority of the world's inhabitants." Promoting 'respect' for religion - the ideas, not the people who hold them - is at odds with the principle that journalists should be free and willing to criticise all ideas as merited.

The report approvingly cites a submission which said "an assumption that society is secularised, religious beliefs are absurd and a problem and religious belief is in decline" represents "religious illiteracy". Elsewhere it says "religion is here to stay and a media that fails to recognise this will inevitably be out of touch". Much of the evidence it relies on comes from community groups and commentators with strongly pro-religious views.

So the call for greater 'religious literacy' is an endorsement of a pro-religious viewpoint, and embedding it in training courses for journalists would be a power grab. The report's recommendations for the broadcast media would have a similar impact: it says the current religious programming hours on the BBC should be protected and the remit of public service broadcasters redrafted to promote 'religious literacy'.

There are also signs of a power grab when the report calls on policy makers to look again at press regulation. And it makes one significant recommendation worthy of particular attention: that groups should be able to make complaints on the grounds of discrimination.

This was also a major point of contention when the press regulator Ipso decided to introduce guidance on the reporting of Islam and Muslims a couple of years ago. While these were being drawn up, in 2019, the regulator's outgoing chair described guidelines on discrimination as "the greatest issue Ipso has had to grapple with".

That year I expressed concern over the direction that Ipso's guidance might take. But when it came out last year, it was a balanced, fair and compassionate explanation of the relevance of clauses 1 (on accuracy) and 12 (on discrimination) of the editors' code.

For example, it told editors to ensure headlines were supported by the story beneath them (noting that this was why The Sun was found in breach of the code when it published the headline "1 in 5 Brit Muslims' sympathy for jihadis"). It told journalists to consider whether the fact someone was Muslim was relevant to the story before mentioning that detail. But it also made clear that an overly broad interpretation of the code would infringe on press freedom.

Ipso's decision not to ban discrimination against groups produced a swift backlash, particularly from several community groups. And there were echoes of this in a higher-profile furore a few months later.

In February a letter from more than 100 public figures to the BBC denounced an interview between BBC Woman's Hour presenter Emma Barnett and Zara Mohammed, the new leader of the Muslim Council of Britain. They called the interview "strikingly hostile", largely basing their criticism on the fact Barnett had asked questions about the number of female imams in Britain.

The hyper-scrutiny that followed this relatively unremarkable interview may well tempt some journalists to steer clear of such terrain in future, and to avoid asking religious leaders tough questions. Such offence-taking risks sending a very bad message about the principle that power should be held to account, and shutting down valid lines of questioning.

But the APPG's recommendation would turn similar culture wars into a formal process. It would hand a weapon to well-organised groups to shut down coverage they dislike. And though the report rightly acknowledges that diversity exists within religious groups, handing community leaders the power to bring such claims would disempower dissenters within their own communities.

Even if those claims were dismissed, they would deter prudent journalists from covering issues which may upset religious groups. And they could also prompt a counter-reaction, by incentivising other, perhaps less scrupulous, journalists who fancy a fight.

So the APPG's drive for 'religious literacy' in the press would require journalists to tread on eggshells. It would abandon the crucial principle that the press holds power to account, not vice versa. And it would give group leaders greater power to shut down criticism of their record on individual rights. It would be bad for social cohesion and for press freedom, and should be rejected.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay.

The DfE must show leadership when religious hardliners turn on schools

Posted: Thu, 6th May 2021

The start of an investigation into the Batley Grammar affair raises questions over the government's willingness to ensure assertive religious voices don't dictate what happens in classrooms, says Stephen Evans.

This article is available in audio format, as part of our Opinion Out Loud series.

A few weeks ago, Batley Grammar School suspended a teacher who had showed a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad in a lesson, as protesters gathered outside its gates. The teacher was forced into hiding, and the case generated widespread publicity.

The school's priority seemed to be ensuring that loud voices in the local Muslim community weren't offended. This was also true of many public figures who took an interest in the case. Politicians and pressure groups lined up to denounce the use of a cartoon in a lesson. Often, they appeared more concerned about the use of a cartoon than the safety of a teacher and the prospect of mob rule dictating what could be taught in a school.

Now the academy trust behind the school has announced that an investigation has opened into the affair. This provides an opportunity to hear what happened in full, and to learn lessons. The trust has said the investigation will be led by an independent barrister with "significant education experience" and "no prior connection with the trust or any of its trustees or employees", which is encouraging.

However, the remit of the investigation may give cause for concern.

In a statement announcing the start of the inquiry, the trust said it would "examine how certain materials, which caused offence, came to be used" in the lesson. It didn't mention - at least explicitly - the school's treatment of the affected teacher. Are the offence-takers still framing the terms of the discussion?

The National Secular Society has sought clarification from both the trust and the Department for Education that the actions of the school are within the remit of the investigation. None has been forthcoming. The DfE simply said the specific terms of reference are a matter for the trust and investigator. This isn't good enough.

Fundamental principles are at stake. Cultural sensitivity can't be allowed to morph into censorship. Teachers must have the freedom to broaden pupils' horizons and encourage them to think critically. We can't allow decisions about the appropriateness of teaching resources to be influenced by offence taking, intimidation and threats.

The outcome of this investigation will have national implications. This episode has already sent a damaging message on teachers' ability to encourage critical thinking on culturally sensitive issues.

That could easily be forgotten if this is seen as a purely local issue, to be negotiated between assertive imams - who claim to speak for Muslims as a whole – and the individual school or trust.

So the government needs to show some leadership. But the Department for Education doesn't seem interested.

The trust has a legitimate interest in finding out what happened and taking recommendations. But it's also in the public interest to ensure the actions of the school are investigated. Feeling the heat from angry protests outside the school gates, the school issued an 'unequivocal apology' to the offended, deemed the resources to be 'completely inappropriate' and threw its teacher under the bus. If we take this imam's words at face value, the school even gave the protestors a role in drafting its statement. We need to know why this happened.

It's worth considering that a thorough investigation of the Batley affair may raise awkward questions for the government. The Batley affair is reminiscent of events at St Stephen's Primary School in east London in 2018. Then the school decided that girls under eight shouldn't wear hijabs in school, and young children shouldn't fast during Ramadan, on the basis that it was detrimental to their health and learning. Muslim pressure groups such as MEND and the Muslim Council of Britain became involved and the school was bombarded with emails in response, with some abusing and threatening violence against staff. The school was effectively forced to back down.

The Department for Education failed to support the school and said nothing on the row.

Arif Qawi, who was forced to quit as chair of governors following the affair, said he was "flabbergasted" at the DfE's silence. He wrote to the then education secretary Damian Hinds, pleading for help, saying that he and the school's head teacher Neena Lall had been "victims of absolutely vile personal abuse on social media platforms".

"This lack of support and weak attitude will be very detrimental to the nation's children," he said.

The DfE was also slow to respond when Muslim-led protesters objected to teaching about relationships and caused substantial disruption for primary schools in Birmingham in 2019. And when it issued guidance on relationships and sex education that year, it required schools to "take children's religious background into account" in their teaching.

We need to be sure that extremist elements within our communities are not impeding teachers' freedom and ability to prepare all pupils equally for life in modern Britain.

When protesters turn up outside the school gates and initiate harassment campaigns, schools shouldn't be left to fend for themselves. That leaves them at the mercy of the mobs and vulnerable to pressure from assertive, intolerant religious voices.

At least in Batley, the DfE issued a statement saying it was "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers" and "schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum, including where they are challenging or controversial".

But condemnation only goes so far. The government has broader shoulders than any individual school or academy trust. So if ministers really want to uphold those principles, they should start by ensuring – if nobody else will – that an investigation considers the Batley episode in full.