Anti-blasphemy protests outside schools and cinemas by conservative Muslims are becoming a threat to national security, a new report has warned.
The review by the Henry Jackson Society think tank has warned that the failure to protect teachers and others from intimidation is amounting to a tacit anti-blasphemy law.
The 69-page report, Britain’s New Blasphemy Police?, examined a series of incidents in recent years including the case of a teacher at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire who showed pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed during an RE lesson.
The teacher remains in hiding more than two years after the row, which prompted protests at the school gates.
The report found that some of those involved in the protest had praised extreme religious clerics and said the school’s response of apologising set a “worrying precedent.”
“Non-religious schools should not be beholden to religious restrictions,” it noted.
