Islam: Religious Hatred

(asked on 15th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to include steps to tackle Islamophobia in the forthcoming online harms Bill.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 22nd January 2020

Anti-Muslim hatred is completely unacceptable and has no place in our society. The Online Harms White Paper will establish in law a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. Companies will be held to account for tackling harms occurring on their platforms, including hate crime. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has the cross-government lead on countering anti-Muslim hatred, and we will continue to work with them closely on this policy. The Secretary of State is looking to bring forward online harms legislation as quickly as possible

We are also ensuring that the criminal law is fit for purpose to deal with online harms. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport and the Ministry of Justice have now engaged the Law Commission on a second phase of their review of abusive and offensive online communications. The Law Commission will review existing communications offences and make specific recommendations about options for legal reform in a final report in 2021.The Law Commission is also looking into the adequacy of protection offered by hate crime legislation. This strand of work is expected to report in 2021.

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