Stever Greer, author of Islamophobia and Free Speech, emeritus professor at the University of Bristol Law School, and research director at the Oxford Institute for British Islam, spoke to a June 1 Middle East Forum podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Fighting discrimination against anyone, including Muslims, is “laudable and necessary,” but in many Western locales, there is an “anti-Islamophobic expression movement” which holds that “little, if any, criticism of Islam and its adherents should be permitted.” This movement has resulted in many cases of people who have been wrongly accused. Those targeted have suffered the ruination of their careers, professional reputations, and livelihoods, while others have been forced into hiding, with many murdered or maimed. “And rather than leaping to their defense, too often public and private institutions have instead sanctioned the victims.”
The anti-Islamophobic movement cultivates a “climate of self-censorship,” stifling legitimate debate about the “interpretations of Islam which conflict with Western values.”
The anti-Islamophobic movement cultivates a “climate of self-censorship,” stifling legitimate debate about the “interpretations of Islam which conflict with Western values.” Greer’s book examines high-profile cases in the U.K. and the U.S. in the fields of “literature, media, public debate, and academic controversy.” The attack on Salman Rushdie and the murders of Pim Fortuyn, Theo Van Gogh, and Charlie Hebdo magazine’s staff are well-known European cases, but there were also attacks on, and murders of, lesser-known individuals who were subject to the same charge of Islamophobia.
Greer was himself targeted in 2020 by the University of Bristol Islamic Society (BRISOC). The organization lodged an official complaint with the university administration, alleging that the professor’s human rights course, which he had taught at the university for 15 years, “included negative observations about the relationship between Islam and human rights derived from the authoritative literature.” Apparently, the motive behind the case against Greer was to serve as a distraction from another University of Bristol professor, an anti-Zionist who had harassed his Jewish students. He “was eventually sacked” and “later worked for the Iranian regime.” BRISOC, frustrated with the slow pace of the case against Greer, upped the ante in 2021 by unleashing a social media campaign to have him dismissed as the chair of human rights at the law school.
The university’s inquiry, conducted over a five-month period, resulted in Greer’s “unequivocal exoneration, unanimously upheld on appeal.” While the university issued a public statement exonerating Greer, it also added “that it recognized the students’ concerns,” despite the fact that its own inquiry had found those concerns “to be totally groundless.” The university also removed Greer’s module from the syllabus “to respect students’ sensitivities.” Greer retired in 2022 and published a book about the scandal in 2023. Last March, his book examining the problem of Islamophobia and free speech was published.
Although the campaign in the U.K. against “so-called Islamophobic expression,” a controversial term meaning “the willful expression of prejudice against Muslim beliefs, practices, and conduct,” states the obvious and is not in itself a problem, the anti-Islamophobic expression movement aims to restrict all criticism of Muslims and their faith. Two factors gave this movement traction: First, the visceral reaction of Muslims and others towards Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses; and second, since 9/11, “the onset of jihadi terrorism and its consequences.”
Contributing further to the spread of the phenomenon of supposed concerns about Islamophobia was the growth of cancel culture and its adherents’ “simplistic thinking” about “woke issues.” The anti-Islamophobia expression movement spread with the public controversy in the U.K. over immigrants and asylum seekers from predominantly Muslim countries who failed to integrate effectively. The explosive rise in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred since the eruption of Middle East wars following Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7 was an accelerant for the movement.
The anti-Islamophobia expression movement spread with the public controversy in the U.K. over immigrants and asylum seekers from predominantly Muslim countries who failed to integrate effectively.
Since the 1990s, militant Muslims who rejected Western values gained the support of Muslim community leaders who regard criticism of Islam as blasphemous and criticism of Muslims prejudiced and discriminatory. The corollary to the assault on Western values has been the timid response by Western institutions and the secular left, who prioritize “avoidance of giving offense over upholding freedom of expression.”
This past March, there was an official attempt to define anti-Muslim hatred. Although not legally enforceable, the definition included “intentionally engaging in unlawful activity against Muslims, including through prejudicial stereotyping intending to encourage hatred.” Nowhere in the definition does the word “Islamophobia” appear, but an accompanying document known as “guidance” lists examples that would not constitute anti-Muslim hostility, including most of “the relevant free speech territory.”
However, there are three key problems plaguing the campaign against Islamophobic expression in the U.K. First, there is a “spurious assumption” that Muslims are persecuted by widespread institutionalized Islamophobia, when respected opinion polls such as YouGov and Pew confirm that Muslims regard the U.K. as a good place to practice their faith. Second, there is a failure to state how British law deals with anti-Muslim hostility, which renders it impossible to analyze the current extent of this hostility and determine the required attention. Finally, there is no “schematic summary” for Muslims of “what they believe and how they’re expected to behave” in order to determine if actual prejudice was involved or if an accurate report, albeit negative, was a legitimate one.
Controversy over what constitutes mainstream Muslim beliefs and practice has “social, political, moral, and legal implications.” Attitudes in Islam and the Quran regarding “women, sexual and marital relations, crime, punishment, and human rights” are hotly debated. The harsh punishments for violations of sharia law in countries where traditional Islam is observed “are particularly controversial in the West.” Apostasy and blasphemy are still punishable by death in several contemporary Islamic states.
Attitudes in Islam and the Quran regarding “women, sexual and marital relations, crime, punishment, and human rights” are hotly debated.
It is still too early to tell what will result from the new, official non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hostility. One encouraging development in the U.K. was the announcement that “a stalled statutory complaints process for academics whose professional freedom has been infringed will finally come into effect in the autumn of this year [2026]. Yet even if it succeeds, the blanket of self-censorship will take time to lighten.”
How the debate over Islamophobia and free speech plays out in the non-academic community in the U.K. will not be determined by searching for definitions or relevant terms. Rather, “it is to be found instead in the robust enforcement of existing law, which permits the criticism of any beliefs, practices, and conduct, provided it does not involve unlawful discrimination or the incitement of violence or hatred.”
