The government has been urged by more than 50 cross-party parliamentarians to adopt a new definition of Islamophobia which would classify discrimination against Muslims as a form of racism, The Independent can reveal.
Members of a cross-party group of MPs and peers have warned discrimination against Muslims in the UK is going “unreported and unchallenged” because of the absence of a concrete definition.
The warning comes weeks after official government statistics showed reports of racial and religiously motivated hate crime in England and Wales had risen for a fifth consecutive year.
Following six months of consultations with various groups, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims proposed “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness” as an official definition.
Now, in a cross-party letter from the APPG seen by The Independent, dozens of parliamentarians are calling on the government to adopt the phrase to clearly identify what constitutes discrimination against Muslims. [The Independent] Read more
