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Is this religious persecution? : Comments
By David Palmer and Allan Harman, published 21/1/2005David Palmer and Allan Harman argue that Justice Higgins' ruling on religious villification is tantamount to religious persecution
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If you want to read the transcript of what Pastor Scot said - rather than what Judge Higgins said he said, it is on the web at http://www.religionlaw.co.uk/interausae.pdf
The three Muslim converts who attended were organised to do so by the Islamic Council and May Helou (who as well as being on the ICV executive worked for the Equal Opportunity Commission at the time).
The quote from Judge Higgins' decision about Pastor Scot 'ridiculing' Muslims focused on what the ICV barristers presented as 'ridicule'. The barristers isolated instances where laughter was heard on the tape of the seminar (see transcript) and questioned Scot about those. For instance, Pastor Scot was asked about an incident during the seminar where he was describing Jesus as the Son of God, and used an Arabic name which means 'the father of cats' to illustrate. He told the audience he was relating a conversation he had with a group of university students in Alexandria. When he told the seminar that he didn't mean the man was the father of cats, some people laughed. But during cross-examination Pastor Scot said that when he had actually told this to the group of students in Alexandria, no-one had laughed.
Re the "Muslims are demons" quoted from the decision in BOAZ_David and Azlan's posts.
Pastor Scot did not say that. He said that the Qur'an says that jinn (demons) came to Mohammed and became Muslims. (Qur'an Sura 72, P 13 of the transcript)It was not the transcription that was wrong!!!
During the hearing, when Pastor Scot was asked about the treatment of women in Islam and he started quoting verses from the Qur'an, he was told to stop because he was continuing to vilify Islam!
The real question that needs to be answered is 'What is vilification?' - otherwise everyone could be at risk for criticising the beliefs of others.