The Muslim News - Interview - Kennedy addresses the concerns of the Muslim community

Issue 189, Friday 21 January 2005 - 10 Dhu al-Hijjah 1425

Interview - Kennedy addresses the concerns of the Muslim community

In an exclusive interview with the Leader of Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy, at his House of Commons offices, on January 13, Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi, asked him a wide range of questions, from outlawing of incitement to religious hatred, which is one of the most important issues concerning the Muslims, to the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel. Kennedy gives his party’s position on these and other issues of concern to the British Muslims.
Ahmed J Versi: The Government is proposing legislation to outlaw incitement to religious hatred. What is your position on this?
Charles Kennedy: We don’t agree with the way in which the Government is going about the religious hatred issue. The first thing is the Bill. We agree the new committee, the Serious Organised Crime Agency – we have no difficulty with that. If that was what the Bill was about we would be constructive as an opposition party, giving it support seeking to improve it. It was wrong the Government to have tagged on to a Bill that is not really about the religious hatred issue. You have to be extremely careful how you approach this for a number of reasons. First of all it is by no means clear whether this would work or whether in fact it would be counter productive. The first person to be prosecuted under the Race Relations legislation wasn’t white. Once you put something like this on statute book it is there for anyone to seek referral to.
Secondly, our Home Affairs team from both houses of Parliament are in the middle of looking at our own programme to counter this, which we believe will be more workable and better than what the Home Office is offering. Our main concern at the moment is, is the proposed legislation going to effective and is it going to work to the detriment of the minority communities. I suspect the Government has not satisfied us on these issues. So we are putting a package together which would take the issue of Blasphemy as part of that approach. It also will look very carefully if the Government legislation isn’t strong enough, what is the type of legislation the Liberal Democrat can actually promote. We would be in the position in the course of next two or three weeks to be able to come out with this paper and we hope to discuss with various communities. We need to look very carefully at the whole question of ethnicity as well, as defined by the Race Relations Act, where the Sikhs are considered as an ethnic group whilst Muslims are not. We therefore need to remove some of these anomalies that exist. But more important than that, we will try and put forward proposals with which all the communities will benefit.
The other anxiety we have looking at what the Government is proposing - just take two very recent issues, the Birmingham issue with the play, Behzti, on the Sikhs and the BBC screening of Jerry Springer: The Opera – it doesn’t appear to us on the face of it, that even if the Government’s proposals were in law, that that law would allow any recourse to these kinds of issues. The impression is given that the Government are going to address the thing they think is going to be addressed.
AJV: The Muslims who have looked into the proposed legislation, have supported the Government on this issue. Would this not be seen that you are against outlawing incitement to religious hatred, per se, rather than aspects of it. You were against the proposals when it was tagged to the anti-terror laws in December 2001, when you had argued that it would affect freedom of expression.
CK: There are quire a number of different complicated things that come into play. You have to identify, for example, the difference of criticising somebody for the race – none of us have a choice over race – and religion, which is, by definition, something you can debate about, and indeed you can change your mind. You have complete freedom of choice there, to certain extent. So you don’t want to close down in a liberal society the sensible ability to, for me as a Christian, talk to somebody as a Jew, about our different perspectives.
AJV: The Government has made very clear that the proposals are not going to affect freedom of expression.
CK: It doesn’t. What we need to bear in mind is not what the Government says what will it affect or what it will not affect. It is how the people actually perceive the legislation is perceived. We will come out with a package which we will discuss with the Muslim community and will give reasons about our proposals.
AJV: In principle, are you for or against outlawing of incitement to religious hatred?
CK: We have no time for that (incitement to religious hatred).
AJV: So you would want to legislate outlawing of incitement to religious hatred.
CK: Yes. We want the best framework. Whether the framework is legislation or whether you can have a framework in terms of statutory guidelines. That is a procedure point for Government. What we will do is to discuss with various communities. What we can agree is on the ends. It is the means that we want to discuss. It may well be - and this is the danger we have seen with so many acts before - you pass an act in the Parliament, the real interpretation of it comes in the courts. Surely, it is better to agree on what you actually want the practical impact to be and then work back from that, how best do we get to that. The Government are doing this slightly the wrong way round. Frankly, as this is close to the General Elections, they are doing it for opportunistic reasons as well.
Incitement to racial hatred has been in statute since 1965. Substantial amount of material, which incite racial hatred, does not pass the test of the Attorney General. The ultimate authority, in terms of the religious hatred will also lie with the Attorney General.
AJV: Would you support the Government’s proposals to outlaw religious discrimination?
CK: Yes, we will support it.
AJV: Even though your Party has now one Muslim in the House of Lords and one in the European Parliament, however, there are no Lib Dem Muslim MPs and no Lib Dem Muslim is expected to win in the forthcoming General Elections as none of the candidates are standing in winnable seats.
CK: I think that this election is a lot more unpredictable than even a year ago would have been the case because there have been big changes in this Parliament. Whereas in the first half of this Parliament, people were looking at our prospects on the results last time – when 9 out of 10 top 100 winnable seats were Conservative held. The change in the last year has been that we have gone from third place to the first place at the expense of the Labour Party, in their seats. The whole assumptions of the elections have changed. We are lot more challenging Labour candidates. Therefore Muslim candidates – not exclusively so – proportionately may well find themselves elected as Lib Dems. I would not have anticipated that was possible a year ago.
AJV: There are no Muslim Lib Dems in the Greater London Authority.
CK: I recognise we have to do more. The same is the issue about women representation. We have a long way to go. I tell my party that if you want to be a party that we can really represent the country, you have to look around the country and reflect the country and then persuade the country to a particularly view point. We are getting there.
AJV: What is your Party’s position on funding of Muslim schools?
CK: We do see education as localised. We don’t like the move towards centralised control of education. We are in favour of flexibility.
AJV: But you would not object the Government funding Muslim schools.
CK: We are not standing in the way of that.
AJV: The anti terrorism act of 2001 gives the Government right to intern foreign nationals without trial. The Law Lords, in December, said that this was illegal. What is your position on this?
CK: We think that the position of those interned in Belmarsh (those interned without trial) is absolutely untenable, legally and in terms of human rights. If you’ve got people whom you consider posing a danger to the security of the country, then charge them and put them in a court of law. Don’t hold them without trial. If to enable that trial to go ahead, you have to go further than we’ve done as a country up until now and allow, for example, admissibility of telephone tapped conversations in the court of law, do that as well. The way in which the Government is standing back from a proper response, given what the Law Lords have said, is an absolute disgrace.
AJV: What is your view on the Britons and others incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay?
CK: When I met George Bush when he was in London in November 2003, this is one of the areas I raised with him. What he said at the time was, the position of the American Government was that if the British Government wanted the British detainees at Guantanamo back, as far I’m concerned, he said to me with a gesture, here is the airline tickets, you can have them. Why has it taken 15 months more and why, even now that they are coming home which we welcome, we don’t know what the position is going to be when they get here. It has been a disgraceful episode.
AJV: How about six British Muslim residents (not nationals) who are also incarcerated at Guantanamo. Should we also not ask for their release?
CK: They are in a slightly different category. That’s an even more legally complicated category. They can’t go back to their own country. As long as they are still in that legal no man’s land they shouldn’t be going in front of some form of American military tribunal. If there is to be any case pursued against them it should be a civilian case in domestic courts.
AJV: Ariel Sharon has said he would unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza strip. But he is increasing settlements in the West Bank and he is not thinking of withdrawing from all areas of the West Bank. Do you think what he’s doing is right or do you think that Israel must withdraw from all the Occupied Territories.
CK: We don’t support the concept of the barrier or wall being built. Secondly, we now do have a new window of opportunity with the change at the top of the Palestinians. I would hope, as President Bush has said he’s going to re-engage, and Tony Blair holding the conference with the Palestinians in London. I hope we would put all of the concerns back on the table for fresh discussion. Once the situation stabilises on both sides that they would look afresh at the whole thing and not take as the starting point at where we are now. We hope people don’t get absolutely totally entrenched in the existing positions.
AJV: But isn’t it double standards that when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, we made sure that she not only was forced by military means to withdraw from 100% of Kuwaiti land, but also we imposed sanctions after Iraq was forced to withdraw. In the case of Israel, we don’t do that. We allow her flexibility, we are allowing her to take over more Palestinian land. Surely, should we not follow the same standard as we did with Iraq, to respect international law. Israel is breaking international law, it is occupying someone else’s territory. Should they not withdraw from all the territories?
CK: We as a party have always supported and continue to support a two-state solution and both those states have got to be with the agreed security of their own recognised borders without violation either from each other or anyone else. That has got to be a principle on which any solution is to be based. And that’s why you need to put everything back on negotiating table.
AJV: What was your position on the invasion of Iraq and what do you think should happen in Iraq now?
CK: We voted against the Government. We wouldn’t be where we are now if we had been in power. We want to see January elections to take place. We want to see as much involvement as we can although we have very big concerns about whether that’s going to be meaningful or not especially with Sunnis not participating. Let’s hope we get bigger participation. The bigger the participation the more legitimacy that comes from the interim authority after that which starts the drafting the constitution.
What we have also said and continues to be our case – particularly post-January, if the democratic process goes as best it can go – that you should then be looking as the position within Iraq, hopefully stabilises for two things to happen. A phase run down withdrawal of a time scale as you move towards democracy of British troops. Secondly, running in parallel with that, you’ve got to internationalise the security situation in Iraq. It is very important to build up the domestic Iraqi forces – it was a big mistake disbanding the Iraqi forces at the beginning. The UN has got to have even more involvement since the international community have given them the legal authority and responsibility to see this process through. They have to internationalise in terms of troops, including Muslim troops.