Having just read the piece by Jonathan Dimbleby discussing the proposed anti-terrorism legislation where he propagates the notion that the laws being suggested are an attack on one of our “most fundamental of principles” (For freedom of speech, these are troubling times, 21 September), I have to say to him and all those who follow his line of reasoning that they are wrong.
The proposed laws are to protect our fundamental principles of freedom – freedom of speech, freedom to believe in whichever religion (or none at all), and most importantly our right to life.
These laws are not there to stop reasoned debate or challenging beliefs, they are to stop people trying to kill you and me.
The problem lies with the difficulty in constructing laws that are clear and unambiguous. There are far too many lawyers who find wriggle room using the same misguided logic as Dimbleby to make a name for themselves, or other more dangerous motives.
Rather than focus on exaggerated and extreme examples of imaginary unintended consequences of such protective laws, the focus should be on how to draft and implement them.
Graham Foulkes
Father of David, killed in the London bombings on 7 July 2005
• In your editorial urging tolerance of Muslims (All society loses when minorities are marginalised by mistrust, 25 September) you ignore that a poll found that 27 % of British Muslims had “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris” in which journalists were murdered.
By always describing Isis as the only danger and ignoring the general sentiments of political Islam supported by many British Muslims, you undermine the foundations of our liberal values – which I assume are also the Guardian’s values.
Tom Bower
London
