Peter Tatchell: Whichever way you try to spin it, it’s discrimination

The human rights and equality campaigner Peter Tatchell told yesterday’s protest at the Law Society that the demonstration was “just the start”. It would be better, he said, for the Law Society to concede now, and withdraw its practice note on sharia-compliant wills.

What the Law Society has done with its guidance on sharia-compliant wills is to say that it is prepared to collude with, to promote, to accept a different set of standards; it’s prepared to comply with … a set of principles that discriminates against women, non-muslims, adopted children and children born to parents who are unmarried.

He would clearly reject any suggestion his stance was somehow “anti-Muslim”:

First and foremost, this guidance is an attack upon sections of the Muslim community who do not share sharia law, who do not share its principles, who do not want to be subject to sharia law principles. So we are here to defend the Muslim community against those who would impose sharia upon it; we’re also here to stand in solidarity with all those Muslim people who are, have been or will be victims of sharia law.