On Monday 26th October, the deputy chair of a government taskforce on anti-Muslim alleged that Matt Hancock’s claim that “Muslim communities were not social distancing” ahead of Eid had produced “hateful narratives”.
Qari Asim, criticised the government for their refusal to publish evidence behind Health Secretary’s unfounded claims that people were “ignoring government guidelines” as he imposed a lockdown in Northern England ahead of Eid al-Adha. The Muslim community is gravely disturbed with some politicians claiming that comments from other Tory MPs like Craig Whittaker were “divisive and discriminatory” while some academics opined that they resulted in bullying and misinformation from far-right social media networks. In the meantime, the government never released any information or evidence publicly that supported their targeted approach of one community.
Now, in response to a freedom of information request to The Guardian, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed that it held the evidence to support Hancock’s claim but refused to publish it. It said to publish the data would jeopardise “the internal deliberative process as it relates to policy making”.
But Asim has been urging ministers to publish the data immediately. In a statement to The Guardian, he said, “We saw a rise of Islamophobia online [in the aftermath of the announcement] and the Muslim communities were seen as the cause of another lockdown. Some people definitely felt that the timing of the announcement was very poor. The way it was made showed disregard to a faith community. We don’t want to give rise to hateful narratives and it’s really import that the authorities ensure that such hateful narratives are not supported.”
