The UK's independent writers and performers are celebrating a government climb down on new legislation which outlaws incitement to religious hatred.
Rowan Atkinson and Salman Rushdie are among those victorious who have forced the legal concession to ensure the offence of causing religious hatred is to be renamed.
The legislation, which comes into force next month, will make the offence "hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds" to clarify that it is not religious jokes, beliefs or ideas that are being targeted.
According to the Times, critics of the new law have rejected the amendment as a marginal improvement that will still impede the UK's tradition of free speech.
But the Home Office has responded, saying it is the right of the Government and the State to draw boundaries on the country's age-old practice.
After the law is passed, the amend will mean it is illegal for a person to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with the intent or likelihood that they will stir up hatred against people based on their religious beliefs.
The climb down follows pressure from the writer's group, PEN, as well as support from high profile authors, such as Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith.
Salman Rushdie and Rowan Atkinson added their names to PEN's official campaign, claiming that traditions of tolerance and freedom of expression were under serious threat without last-minute reform.
Mr Atkinson argued that from accounts of other comics in Australia, similar religious hate laws had gone horribly wrong.
Human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, backed the celebrity pleas, arguing that the religious hatred law was "unnecessary and clumsily framed yet carries a very serious sentence."
His comments reflect the proposed sentence of seven years for the offence, which he said is already adequately covered under the Public Order Act.
The Home Office has since agreed to clarify the title of the offence, which they admitted had caused some anxiety.
"It is hatred against people rather than hatred of ideas that we are trying to prohibit," said minister, Fiona Mactaggart.
"The name of the offence has helped to create a context in which some of this confusion has flourished," she said.
Separately, Ms Mactaggart is backing a wider government strategy to strengthen opportunities for British citizens across the board.
"Regardless of what differences there may be in ethnicity or religion, British people are bound together by shared values of tolerance and justice, a desire to ensure that everyone has equal opportunities in education, jobs, healthcare, and intolerance of abuse or attack because of who people are."
The minister added, "none of this means people must lose their individual identities," but instead a single oppressive culture can be avoided for a Britain of all backgrounds, where people live and work together.
Meanwhile, it is understood that the new religious hatred offence protects Jews and Sikhs but not Muslims, Christians or other religious groups.
The government's hope is that the law will have a symbolic and positive impact on Muslim communities, after many said they felt vulnerable following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Feb 8, 2005
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