A government adviser has said that appeasing religious mobs will undermine social cohesion.
Dame Sara Khan criticised the government for failing to intervene after protesters caused Cineworld to cancel all UK screenings of a film about the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter.
According to The Telegraph:
Dame Sara said it would be easy to criticise Cineworld when questions should be asked about “what support and help did they receive from local and central government, their local MPs and even the police”.
Cineworld said it had pulled The Lady of Heaven “to ensure the safety of our staff and customers”. More than 120,000 people signed a petition opposing its screening, while the Bolton Council of Mosques called the film “blasphemous”.
Dame Sara warned that failing to stand up to the protests was a “dangerous slippery slope” that would mean anybody offended by anything could potentially try to shut down all kinds of lawful activities through the use of “intimidation and fear”.
Citing previous cases where a teacher and playwright had been silenced by bullying, she said: “Over the years, leadership from local MPs, local authorities and central government in standing up and firmly defending our democratic values has unfortunately been lacking.
“I have seen how local authorities and MPs have tried to appease religious mobs or sit on the fence, so to speak, in the hope that such protests will disperse – and often they have, in the short-term.
“But this is a failure of leadership and, in the long-term, has only galvanised religious fundamentalists, who now know that by engaging in such behaviour their unreasonable demands will be met.
“And in the long-term, all this will do will undermine social cohesion in our country and result in a gradual erosion of our democratic values and principles.”
