Iran is blamed for ‘stirring the pot of religious prejudice’ by stoking school blasphemy protests in Britain

Iran is ‘stirring the pot of religious prejudice’ by stoking protests outside schools and on the streets of the UK, a new report has warned British intelligence services.

The paper by the think tank Policy Exchange says MI5 must reinstate ‘counter-subversion operations’ to deal with the threat posed by Tehran.

It highlighted a series of protests condemning apparent instances of blasphemy, linking them to the alleged influence of the Islamic Republic regime on British Muslims.

Two of the cases it discussed were the 2021 Batley Grammar School protests and the demonstrations over The Lady Of Heaven film in 2022, which Policy Exchange said ‘serve as an indication that de facto blasphemy codes can be enforced on the streets if protesters commit to doing so’.

Dr Paul Stott, head of security and extremism at the think tank, told The Times that Iran has ‘encouraged an atmosphere which anything that smacks of blasphemy leads to intimidation’.

Protests were held outside the gates at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire in 2021

Controversy: Poster for the film The Lady Of Heaven 

Some cinemas made the decision to pull the film from theatres following the backlash. Pictured: Cineworld in Birmingham

The report further said that Iran is threatening Britain’s security and values by sending radical regime-sponsored clerics to a ‘nerve centre’ in west London.

The hardline Islamic Republic of Iran has spent decades ‘curating a politico-religious infrastructure in Britain’ focused on the Islamic Centre of England (ICEL) – a registered UK charity based in a converted cinema in Maida Vale, a study by Policy Exchange found.

It suggests Iran is using the centre as a base from which to ‘undermine our values and impose blasphemy codes’.

It says the director of ICEL is appointed by Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, suggesting the centre ‘is not merely some dry, arid religious institution’ but rather ‘sits at the centre of a substantial network of Iranian influence operations within this country’.

In 2021, cinemas saw protests from Muslims claiming the film The Lady of Heaven is ‘blasphemous’. Pictured: Birmingham

ICEL, which states its charitable purpose as advancing the religion of Islam and education and the provision of social and religious welfare facilities, is at the centre of a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission.

The watchdog launched its inquiry in November 2022 after issuing the charity with an official warning in 2020 when two events at the centre ‘eulogised’ Iranian military commander General Qasem Soleimani, who was subject to UK sanctions and killed in a US air strike.

A string of senior clerics trained by and loyal to the Iranian regime have been able to travel freely between Tehran and London – even when Iran has imprisoned British citizens such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – the report, entitled ‘Tehran calling: The Iranian threat to the UK’, said.

The UK has a long-standing policy of issuing visas for Iranian clerics to work in Britain, it says, claiming 100 such visas were handed out between 2005 and 2022.

The report also hit out at MI5 for apparently abandoning its ‘core task’ of counter-subversion at a time when Iran is trying ‘to influence political, religious, educational or cultural organisations, or shape contemporary protest movements, to its own ends’. 

ICEL, which states its charitable purpose as advancing the religion of Islam and education and the provision of social and religious welfare facilities, is at the centre of a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission. Pictured: Iran’s supreme leader and Iranian clerics 

It adds: ‘The idea that Iran may be seeking to influence British Muslims, and that it may be someone’s job to stop this, has not been openly articulated by the Security Service.’

Policy Exchange urged the Home Secretary to order the Home Office and Security Service to take urgent action to counter Iranian subversion in the UK.

It also called for a crackdown on issuing UK visas to hardline clerics and Iranians coming to work at ICEL and any associated institutions.

Report author Dr Paul Stott said: ‘Iran challenges our security, but it also threatens the UK’s social cohesion and our values. Allowing it to build and sustain an infrastructure in this country is madness.

‘We need to get much smarter in our response, and that starts with proper control of the visa system.’