Our religious freedom

Barnabus Fund responds to British government’s new Green Paper 1

A new Green Paper 2 in response to the Casey Review (Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper), has taken on board many of the points made by Barnabas Fund and other organisations. Chief among our concerns, was the threat to freedom that the Casey Review posed. Dame Louise Casey was tasked with setting out how communities could integrate against the threat of Islamist terrorism.  However, her review suggested that all faiths and beliefs should be judged as to whether they are “at odds with mainstream society”. This was an attack on liberty at the deepest level.

Barnabas Fund’s Our Religious Freedom campaign was launched partly to respond to the threat implied in Casey’s review. We are alarmed by the possibility that, despite Casey’s wellmeaning attempt to confront “radicalisation”and “terrorism”, the government may end up replacing one form of intolerance with another.