Birmingham City Council’s Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) has been accused of buckling to sectarian pressure by excluding a Muslim group from joining its number.
According to a report by International Business Times UK, members of the City’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Community had an application in July to join the SACRE rejected, following advice from the SACRE’s Chair that the Committee’s rules and attitudes of some of its existing Muslim members meant Ahmadis could not be admitted as Muslims. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community members were encouraged to instead apply to join the SACRE without describing themselves as a Muslim group, advice which was rejected. Some Muslims views Ahmadis as heretics and not co-religionists.
Chair of the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘SACREs should not become involved in religious rivalries, nor be pressurised into editing out local religious communities. They should be neutral and inclusive, and if someone wants to withdraw in protest, that is their choice; they can disenfranchise their own members if they so wish, but not those belonging to another religious group. SACREs should be promoting dialogue, not discrimination.’
SACREs are local authority committees in England and Wales which monitor and advise upon the provision of Religious Education and assemblies in community, voluntary controlled and foundation schools. The Committees are supposed to bring together local politicians, teachers and religion and belief groups.
Birmingham SACRE has previously been accused of discriminating against non-religious people. In contrast to most SARCEs, the SACRE has refused to admit a member that seeks to represent local humanists. Meanwhile, a 2014 Freedom of Information request from the Accord Coalition member group, the British Humanist Association, revealed that the SACRE had threatened the Government with legal action were it to issue guidance to state funded schools supporting the teaching of non-religious worldviews in RE.
