Reports of death threats against West Yorkshire school pupils who allegedly damaged a copy of the Koran are alarming, the home secretary has said.
Suella Braverman has spoken of her “deep concern” over the case and said it raises broader issues of free speech.
The home secretary has also promised to work with education officials on new guidance for schools to make clear that teachers “do not have to answer to self-appointment community activists”.
The Department for Education is already believed to be working with Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, after it suspended four students over the incident.
A copy of the Islamic text was reportedly brought to school by a Year 10 pupil as part of a dare last week and its cover was allegedly slightly torn, while smears of dirt were found on some pages.
The boy’s mother – who said he is 14 years old and has “high functioning autism” – has said he received “death threats” over what happened.
Headteacher Tudor Griffiths said initial investigations suggest there was “no malicious intent by those involved”.
Wakefield council said the copy of the Koran had suffered “slight damage”.
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Police have recorded the case as a “non-crime hate incident” – a designation officers use to record incidents which do not meet the criminal threshold, according to The Times.
Ms Braverman writes in the paper that she is “not happy with the way non-crime hate incidents are recorded” and promised to announce new guidance for police soon.
Protect ‘safety of children’ after ‘disturbing’ video
The home secretary also said that “the education sector and police have a duty to prioritise the physical safety of children over the hurt feelings of adults”.
Ms Braverman added that a “disturbing video” has emerged which showed a meeting about the alleged damage “which looked more like a sharia law trial”.
She added the mother of one boy at the meeting was made to account for his behaviour in an all-male crowd.
Ms Braverman also wrote there has been “understandable alarm” throughout the country about recent events at the school.
She added: “I share it.”
The article continues: “We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain and must not be complicit in the attempts to impose them on this country. There is no right not to be offended.
“There is no legal obligation to be reverent towards any religion.”
Warning that respect for freedom of speech was “going in the wrong direction”, she said Islam should not expect a “special status” to protect the religion from disrespect.
“There is a long, ignoble history of that, which goes back at least as far as the furore over The Satanic Verses”, she wrote, in a reference to the novel by Sir Salman Rushdie that led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s.
“It is rooted in a view – actually a bigoted one – that Muslims are uniquely incapable of controlling themselves if they feel provoked. And it has excused agitators using fear to force people to bend to their demands,” she said.
