In the UK any speech that is in any way critical of Islam is not only taboo and viewed as a thought crime carrying devastating results for the individual engaged in it, socially and professionally, but it is also now a potential criminal offence.
One GCSE student in England learned this lesson that hard way after examiners failed their exam paper after they criticised the Islamic ritual slaughter of animals for meat known as Halal slaughter.
A 16-year-old girl had been a model student and was expressing her belief’s as a vegetarian and an animal rights advocate that the method in which animals are slaughtered to produce Halal meat is “disgusting”.
While the student made no references to race or the religion of Islam itself, the criticism was not tolerated and condemned as racist and Islamophobic but the girl’s mother, nurse Layla Ward, said that the examiner was being “over-zealous, over-righteous”.
The girl’s school, Gildredge House school in East Sussex, have agreed to appeal the “malpractice offence” disqualification to the exam board.
The schools headmaster told the student’s parents he was “just as angry and shocked as they were” and confirming that “it was about the halal meat comments”.
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