UK mulls hate law reform as far-right leader cleared

LONDON, Nov 11 (Reuters) Britain's racial and religious hatred laws may need reform after a court cleared a far-right leader for the second time this year over a speech in which he called Islam a ''wicked, vicious faith'', ministers said.

Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, was found not guilty yesterday of inciting racial hatred during secretly filmed speeches in 2004.

Two senior ministers said the comments had upset most Britons and British Muslims needed reassurance that the laws would protect them.

''Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country and I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out,'' the Chancellor (Finance Minister) Gordon Brown told the BBC.

''If that means that we have to look at the laws again, I think we will have to do so.'' Constitutional Affairs Secretary Charles Falconer said the country had to show it would not tolerate attacks on Islam.

''If you say Islam is wicked and evil and there is no consequence from that whatsoever, what is being said to young Muslim people in this country is that we ... are anti-Islam,'' he told the BBC.

Of Britain's 60 million people, some 1.6 million are Muslims.

A taskforce set up after the July 2005 suicide bomb attacks in London concluded that extremists have found recruits among young Muslims ''fuelled by anger, alienation and disaffection from mainstream British society.'' Divisions have been exposed by a charged debate over whether Muslim women should wear a veil in Britain. Prime Minister Tony Blair called it a ''mark of separation''.

Some of Britain's Muslims accuse the police of unfairly targeting their community in their crackdown on terrorism.

Griffin, 47, and BNP worker Mark Collett, 26, were cleared on Friday of using words or behaviour intended to incite racial hatred by a jury at Leeds Crown Court in northern England.

They were cleared of similar charges at a trial in February.

Griffin was charged after the BBC secretly filmed a speech he gave in 2004 during which he told supporters Islam was a ''wicked, vicious faith'' that was turning the country into ''a multi-racial hell-hole''.

Griffin maintained throughout the trial that his comments were not racial and were designed to stir his audience to political activity.

The BNP commands nothing like the influence of similar far-right parties across Europe but holds several seats on local councils.

REUTERS BDP PM1356