13 October 2016

Why shouldn’t Louis Smith take the piss out of Islam?

.... The most concerning part of this story is not the video but the quote from a security expert, who said: ‘Mocking religion is pretty foolish anyway. In the case of Islam, it can also be quite a risky thing to do.’

That was followed up by Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadan Foundation, who said: ‘Our faith is not to be mocked, it is to be celebrated.’ Sorry, Mr Shafiq – you are free to celebrate your faith to your heart’s content, and drunken Olympians are free to take the piss out of it. Or they should be.

That security expert is right, actually: mocking Islam is a risky thing to do these days. And that’s a dire indictment of the censorious situation we’ve allowed ourselves to get into. I even thought twice before submitting this piece defending Smith, such is the climate of fear around offending the religion of peace. [Spiked] Read more