Examination of Witnesses (Question Number
80)
MR JON
BENJAMIN, MR
DON HORROCKS,
MR DAVID
POLLOCK, MR
STEPHEN SLACK
AND MS
ANDREA WILLIAMS
12 JUNE 2008
Q80 Chairman: Under this Charities
Act as described in this consultation document, you talk about
the history, but a religious group which says that Christians
are infidels is going to be perfectly fine under this.
Ms Williams: If they are fine
and if they do get charitable status but then decide to issue
a fatwa on someone, that would take them outside the charitable
status, but that would be fine because that is part of the freedom
of speech. The ability to debate and for a Muslim to call me an
infidel, that is freedom of speech, and that is something that
we have to be able to do in society, and whether there is a way
of living alongside one another and really being able to work
out whether there is truth, whether there is a way of coexisting,
is a very important thing to do in Britain 2008.
Chairman: We have been all round the
houses, but it is been interesting and I do not envy the Charity
Commission the task of distilling this consultation exercise into
a workable document, but we shall see what they come up with.
It has been interesting for us to be able to test some of the
arguments here. Thank you very much indeed, all of you, for coming
along.
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