{"id":466070,"date":"2026-03-09T14:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/466070\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:56:09","slug":"steve-reed-anti-muslim-hatred-definition-doesnt-hit-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/466070\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Reed: Anti-Muslim hatred definition doesn’t hit free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

An independent group, led by former Conservative minister Dominic Grieve, was established by the government last year to provide advice on a definition of “anti-Muslim hatred\/Islamophobia”.<\/p>\n

This was in response to what the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government called the “concerning rise in anti-Muslim hate crime, which has reached record levels”.<\/p>\n

In December, the BBC saw a draft definition<\/a> which did not include the term “Islamophobia”.<\/p>\n

The definition is non-statutory, meaning it is not set in law or legally binding, but will provide guidance to public bodies on what constitutes unacceptable treatment of Muslims.<\/p>\n

During the consultation, the EHRC said a new definition could cause “further harm to community cohesion if it is perceived as a threat to freedom of expression”.<\/p>\n

Reed said “if you can’t describe a problem you can’t do anything about it” as he defended the development of the final definition, which has yet to be published.<\/p>\n

Asked why he had ignored the EHRC’s concerns, Reed told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I didn’t ignore it, I share those concerns actually and the key point there was ‘if it stifles freedom of speech’ and it doesn’t.<\/p>\n

“The task force came up wording that explains what causes hostility to Muslim people from the behaviours of others.<\/p>\n

“But it in no way restricts people’s freedom and people’s rights to criticise religion in general, any religion in particular or even people for practising that religion.”<\/p>\n

Reed said he believed a way of dealing with “legitimate concerns” had been found while protecting Muslims from the “scale of abuse that they’re facing”.<\/p>\n

Of the total religious hate crime offences recorded by police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2025, 4,478 (45%) targeted Muslims – compared to 3,866 in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n

A breakdown of the “hate crime rate” in 2024\/25 released by the Home Office showed 106 offences targeted Jewish people per 10,000 population and 12 offences per 10,000 Muslims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An independent group, led by former Conservative minister Dominic Grieve, was established by the government last year to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-466070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}