It used to be Saudi Arabia stoking Muslim fervour in the UK and elsewhere. Now it's Iran:
Iran has been blamed for stoking protests outside British schools as a new report reveals its widespread and increasing attempts to impose de facto blasphemy laws in the UK.
A report by Policy Exchange called on MI5 to reinstate “countersubversion operations” in a bid to tackle the growing threat from Tehran.
The think tank links a series of recent protests condemning acts of blasphemy to the growing influence of the Iranian regime on British Muslims.
It claimed the Islamic Centre of England (ICE), which is run by a direct representative of Iran’s supreme leader, was the “nerve centre” of Iran’s presence in the UK.
It said Iran uses the ICE and other institutions across the UK to project soft power and influence, with increasing numbers of Iranian clerics moving to Britain to spread Tehran’s strand of Islam.
Policy Exchange also uncovered figures revealing that the UK has granted 100 visas to Iranian religious figures since 2005, with 21 of them issued to clerics who are trained by and must remain loyal to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Home Office denied visas to a further 44 Iranian religious leaders over the same period....
Another example the report gave of Iran’s “ability to stir the pot of religious prejudice within the UK” include the protests that occurred outside Batley Grammar School in 2021, which forced a teacher who had shown his pupils a cartoon of Muhammad into hiding.
It also cited the incident at a school in Wakefield in February last year where four schoolboys were suspended after one of them reportedly scuffed his own copy of the Qur’an.
The three examples “serve as an indication that de facto blasphemy codes can be enforced on the streets if protestors commit to doing so,” the report said.
And if the police and local authorities are too scared to take any action.
The report is here.
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