Police force orders officers to keep record of Britons' anti-Islam comments
A police force has ordered its officers to keep a record of Britons' anti-Islam comments.
South Wales Police has been accused of undermining free speech after directing its officers to log any behaviour deemed "hostile" towards Muslims that exceeds what the force considers "legitimate" debate about Islam.
The Free Speech Union has now issued a formal demand for the constabulary to rescind the guidance, and has threatened a judicial review should it refuse to comply.
Its founder Lord Young warned the policy risks "penalising people for expressing misgivings about Islam", which he argues contradicts statutory protections for free speech.
The union's lawyers have written to the force arguing that its internal memo "gives rise to an unjustified chilling effect on lawful expression and belief".
Critics have argued the approach effectively grants individual police officers the power to determine what constitutes acceptable discourse about religion.
The concern centres on what happens when an officer judges that someone has overstepped "boundaries" in discussing Islam or Muslims.
In such cases, the force would create an anti-social behaviour incident record.
This would be accessible to future employers if those who fall foul of officers undergo vetting for a job.
The union's legal correspondence says people "are deterred from expressing religious, philosophical or political views, or from manifesting their beliefs, by the knowledge that doing so may result in police categorisation and recording as an instance of hostility notwithstanding the absence of any criminal conduct."
Multiple other police forces are said to have adopted similar approaches.
Labour formally unveiled its anti-Muslim hostility definition in March, having abandoned earlier attempts to define Islamophobia amid criticism that such a definition would amount to a blasphemy law.
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This official definition covers the "prejudicial stereotyping" of Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim, treating them as a collective defined by fixed negative characteristics with intent to encourage hatred, regardless of their individual opinions or actions.
The Government also built in explicit safeguards protecting the right to criticise or ridicule the religion.
However, South Wales Police's interpretation adds additional wording which opponents warn strips away these protections.
The force has said its definition is not meant to restrict "legitimate discussion, scrutiny, or differing viewpoints", but tells officers to record relevant conduct "appropriately".
The FSU's legal letter says individual officers should not beocome responsible for determining what qualifies as "legitimate" expression, arguing this creates "an unacceptable risk of unlawful interference with protected rights."
The European Convention on Human Rights includes safeguards freedom of expression, including speech that may offend, shock or disturb.
It also protects "freedom of thought, conscience and belief", including the right to hold religious or philosophical beliefs which may be critical of or "incompatible" with others.
But the police's interpretation of anti-Muslim hostility means that "individuals are left unable to predict whether their lawful speech or beliefs will attract police recording, or how any resulting record may be used, retained, or relied upon", the letter says.
Lord Young also warned that public bodies adopting Labour's definition would "gold-plate it, ignoring the free speech protections and penalising people for expressing any misgivings about Islam, even when it's clear those misgivings are rooted in evidence, not prejudice".
He said the default police response to reports of anti-Muslim hostility, even those clearly outside the definition, would likely be recording them as anti-social behaviour incidents, which remain disclosable in enhanced DBS checks.
A South Wales Police spokesman confirmed the force had "received correspondence from the Free Speech Union and the matter is ongoing".
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