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Well, some parts of the new strategy announced by the UK’s Muslim Action Forum (MAF) sound great. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we all adhered to these?

This strategy and campaign will have taken its first historical step by presenting a petition supported by over 100 000 signatures of Muslims promoting the concept of Global Civility… Desecration of human dignity through insult, denigration and humiliation is ethically and morally wrong. Reckless and malicious expressions leading to demonization and vilification must be restrained.

Then what the hell do they think their proposed law that denigrates, demonizes and vilifies religious critics is doing?

MAF intends to launch a series of legal challenges in the English Court system to establish that such depictions of our Holy Prophet peace be upon Him is the worst kind of ‘Hate Crime’ that can be perpetrated on the 3 million Muslims in the UK and 1.7 billion Muslims worldwide… [The strategy is]…to prevent the continuous insulting and derogatory publications depicting and abusing the personality of our Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon Him.

The press release calls on Parliament to amend its definition of hate crimes to include: “any malicious depiction of images and use of malevolent language against revered personalities of all religions,” because irreverent cartoons are:

the single most important issue to every Muslim in this country and worldwide.

I suspect a great many Muslims would disagree with that. The National Secular Society in the UK responded:

We…reject such unreasonable demands to undermine everybody’s fundamental rights and freedoms. Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society.