Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PUPILS: WE SUPPORT SUSPENDED TEACHER
Pupils’ petition for Prophet row Sir
STUDENTS have started a petition to support their religious studies teacher after he showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class sparking furious protests.
Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire switched to remote learning yesterday as around 50 protesters spent a second day demonstrating.
They are calling for the teacher to be sacked after he used images thought to have been taken from French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during a lesson on blasphemy. The teacher, aged 29, has been suspended.
Protesters insist he has dishonoured the Prophet Muhammad. But the Government said it was never acceptable to “intimidate” teachers.
The online petition had 12,800 signatures by yesterday afternoon.
One student wrote: “We’ve watched our RS teacher defend the integrity of all religions and do not and will not believe he is racist in any way!”
Head Gary Kibble has apologised for the “totally inappropriate” cartoon.
One protester aged 25 who gave his name as Tainy said: “I love my prophet more than I love my mother and father. You can’t attack that person.”
But Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick insisted that teachers should be able to “appropriately show images of the Prophet”. Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Baroness Kishwer Falkner said: “A teacher’s identity being shared could result in enforcement from the police.”
Twelve people were killed in 2015 at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris by two men who claimed affiliation to al-qaeda after a cartoon was published.