I have written before in this diary of the appalling case of Daniel Scot, the Christian pastor who has been convicted in the state of Victoria, Australia, of incitement to religious hatred under a law which bears a striking similarity to the one the government is proposing and which it insists — falsely, in my view — will not criminalise legitimate criticism of religion. I think that it will, and a number of Christians, secularists and others think so too and are very deeply alarmed. The Australian law, and in particular the conviction of Daniel Scot, provides a highly disturbing guide to what we are letting ourselves in for, particularly given the militancy with which Muslims attack any criticism of Islam. There is every danger that this new law in will stifle, through self-censorship as much as anything else, vital British debate about religion.

What I had not realised until today was quite how shocking is the case of Daniel Scot. This became clear from a poorly attended meeting at the House of Commons, where he briefly related his story. Born in 1951 in the Punjab, he belonged to the small Christian minority in Muslim Pakistan. He wanted to become a lecturer in maths at the University of Punjab but as preference was given to Muslims he studied the sacred texts of Islam and passed his exam in Islamic studies with a perfect score to get the job.

In 1986, however, Pakistan made the offence of insulting the Prophet Mohamed punishable by death. Shortly afterwards, the university authorities pressured Scot to convert to Islam. He refused and was forced into hiding after death threats were issued against him. Months later, he fled Pakistan for the safe haven (!) of Australia. He became a maths lecturer, was ordained as a pastor and began holding seminars on Islam. Two months after the religious hatred law came into force, one of his seminars — conducted at the invitation of Pastor Danny Nalliah, head of Catch the Fire ministries in Melbourne —was attended by three Muslim converts at the behest of the Islamic Council of Victoria, working in tandem with the Equal Opportunities Commission of Victoria. They took notes, which became a complaint which formed the basis of the case against Scot and Nalliah.

Much of this complaint related to statements made by Scot which were merely direct translations from the Koran. According to Scot’s supporters, the three complainants later admitted their knowledge of the Koran was slight and they had not recognised the verses. An audio transcript of the seminar, say Scot’s supporters, shows that he told his audience several times that ‘Muslims are not the enemy. We must love Muslims’ and that most were peace-loving, kind, family-oriented people — but that most Australian Muslims didn’t know what the Koran actually said.

Scot and Nalliah were nevertheless found guilty last December. The penalty has yet to be handed down. But the Islamic council of Victoria is considering asking for penalties including a public apology, an injunction prohibiting Scot from conducting further seminars, the suppression of the disputed seminar’s audiotapes and transcript, and the suppression of the court files relating to the hearing.

When our Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart next repeats her fatuous and misleading apologia for this terrifying piece of legislation, the case of Daniel Scot — a refugee from Islamic death threats arising from the suppression of free speech, who found that his place of sanctuary had been nightmarishly suborned by the same clerical fascism — should be read into the parliamentary record as witness to the surrender to religious intimidation in which the government is now so terribly complicit.