UKIP MEP Gerard Batten reiterates call for Muslims to sign "Charter of Understanding"

The Independent today reveals that UKIP MEP for the London region, Gerard Batten, has repeated his call for Muslims to sign the “Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding” explicitly disavowing violence committed in the name of Islam.

Batten wrote the foreword to the Charter which was initially published in 2006 but made headlines last February when its contents came to prominence.

The Charter calls on Muslims to regard as “inapplicable, invalid and non-Islamic” all Qur’anic verses “encouraging physical violence, whether implicit or explicit, or any other quotations from any Islamic source, be that Sunnah or the sayings of the Prophet or that of the learned scholars or leaders of Jihad at any given time of place”.

The Charter also states that “All Qur’anic verses that could be regarded as inciting discrimination on the grounds of religion, ethnicity or gender are just historical and will be regarded as non-effective for today’s world” and suggests “These verses will be either deferred or suspended until such time as scholars find a solution for their interpretation”.

In a blog posted the day after the murderous attacks on cartoonists at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, Batten wrote that “representatives of Islam” and all those who practise the religion should sign the Charter to distance themselves from the “tiny minority of Muslims who want to return to the Dark Ages of Arabia and live under Sharia Law,” according to the paper.

Batten also suggests that Muslims signing the Charter would “protect citizens who want to live in “a civilised, liberal, democratic society”, adding “Who could possibly object to these principles in this day and age?”

Who could object?

Well, those who don’t want to take lessons on how to live in “a civilised, liberal, democratic society” from Batten, or UKIP, for a start.