LONDON, 8 July 2004 — Britain said yesterday it plans to legislate to stop attacks on Islam in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Proposed new laws against religious hatred would also crack down on Muslim extremist preachers who urge their followers to violence.

Inciting hatred against other races is already a crime in Britain but there is no equivalent law protecting all religions.

A previous bid to create such legislation after the 2001 US attacks was blocked by Britain’s upper parliamentary chamber, the House of Lords, which objected to its status as an add-on to sweeping new anti-terrorism legislation.

“We tried unsuccessfully to introduce an offense of incitement to religious hatred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks but I hope we will now have the parliamentary backing to put this in law,” Home Secretary David Blunkett said.

Blunkett said the law, which will probably take more than a year to introduce even if it does not again meet parliamentary opposition, would apply equally to Islamic extremists as to those who target Muslims.

“It applies equally to far-right evangelical Christians as to extremists in the Islamic faith,” he added in a speech to an Institute for Public Policy Research conference

in London.

Some religious leaders welcomed the plan, but politicians warned it would again face a tough ride through Parliament due to civil liberties concerns and overlaps with other laws.

“This is a long overdue measure but nevertheless is a welcome first step,” said Iqbal

Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, adding that far right groups had stepped up “virulently anti-Muslim invective” of late.

A Jewish leader, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, said the proposal filled a “worrying gap” by extending Muslims and Christians similar protection to that already afforded Jews and Sikhs under other, separate legislation.

“This currently leaves them exposed to verbal insults, inflammatory sermons and offensive pamphlets,” he added.

Labour peer Lord Desai predicted Blunkett’s idea would again have a “very difficult time” in the Lords.

And the opposition Conservatives accused Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government of opportunism prior to two parliamentary by-elections next week. Both seats in central England are traditionally solid ground for Blair’s Labour Party but have big Muslim populations so are vulnerable due to disquiet over Iraq.

“This was debated after Sept. 11 and turned out to be completely unworkable,” the Conservatives’ home affairs spokesman David Davis said of Blunkett’s proposal.

“It will impinge on civil liberties and only serve to make lawyers rich ... Perfectly adequate laws against violence or conspiracies to commit violence already exist.”

Britain’s National Secular Society was scathing about Blunkett’s plans, likening them to medieval blasphemy laws and saying similar legislation in Australia had resulted in farce.

“We are on very dangerous territory here, and Mr. Blunkett is rushing in once more with legislation that seeks to control thought and opinion,” said its executive director Keith Porteous Wood.

“Not since Tudor times is religion being given so much power to silence its opponents.”