The terrifying reaction to a panel debate on Islamophobia | 28 October 2019

Have you ever wondered why so few moderate Muslim voices are heard in the public debate? I used to, until I started to defend my faith against its extremist defamers. I then found out that any Muslim who ventures into this arena to stand up against hardliners is subject to fierce and immediate character assassination.

The process is exposed in a Civitas pamphlet, out this month, entitled ‘The No True Muslim’ fallacy. It provides examples of the attempts to silence people like Sara Khan and Fiyaz Mughal by those who have appointed themselves as Islam’s spokesmen. But I can offer another example: the reaction to a recent event at the last Tory party conference.

The discussion, hosted by Policy Exchange, was about the debate on so-called ‘Islamophobia’ – which, as I have described in The Spectator, is a phrase intended as a weapon to silence, intimidate or even criminalise anyone who scrutinises what extremists have to say.