Yahoo News Court bid to stop LGBT lesson protests at Birmingham school starts
Protests were held outside the high court on Monday over a bid to permanently ban activists against LGBT equality lessons from demonstrating outside a Birmingham primary school.
Holding up gag order signs, protesters gathered outside the court ahead of a hearing to stop protests against equality lessons taking place at Anderton Park primary school.
The school, in the Sparkhill area of the city, has become the focus of a long campaign to halt LGBT equality messages being taught in the classroom.
Headteacher Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, who was subjected to almost three hours of cross-examination, told the court that protest leader Shakeel Afsar had behaved aggressively towards her and tried to “whip up a frenzy” in a bid to stop the lessons.
The heated protests were led by mainly by Pakistani-heritage Muslim parents, who say the lessons are in conflict with their “religious beliefs and family values”.
On Monday, a high court application by Birmingham city council to make an exclusion zone around the school permanent started. The council launched court action in a bid to prevent more protests outside the school after about 300 people gathered at the gates in May.
An emergency interim order was granted, and later extended in June, which sought to halt any more gatherings near the primary school that could disrupt pupils or intimidate staff.
Hewitt-Clarkson said Afsar, who is contesting the injunction, rapidly enflamed the situation despite parents being invited to meetings and being consulted with over equality teaching at the school.
“There were many meetings with parents, with several workshops … but things changed very rapidly in February,” she said.
The school has been the scene of regular protests outside its gates since March. After a brief reprieve during the summer holidays, protests resumed at the beginning of September. Close to the school but outside an exclusion zone, Afsar shouted through a mic calling for Hewitt-Clarkson to stand down and led chants of “Our Kids, Our Choice” and “Let Kids Be Kids”.
Describing a meeting with Afsar to discuss equality teaching, Hewitt-Clarkson said: “He slammed his hand on my desk. He used the word ‘demand’. It was volatile. It was aggressive. In my 26 years of teaching I have never experienced a meeting like it.
She continued: “I don’t mind staunch objections but what I do mind is aggressive behaviour. This is a primary school. I am not going to invite that type of behaviour into my school halls.”
The temporary injunction bans Afsar, his sister Rosina Afsar, who had two children at the school but has since removed them, and Amir Ahmed from coordinating protests, handing out leaflets, gathering inside an exclusion zone or being abusive about school staff and their teaching.
Ahmed, who has been campaigning across the country on the issue, has previously said there were sinister attempts underway across the country to “queerify the classroom”, with Parkfield school, in Saltley, Birmingham, and Anderton Park at the forefront.
Under questioning from the protestors’ barrister, Ramby De Mello, Hewitt-Clarkson said although the school was not promoting homosexuality she conceded that some Muslim parents would feel “a tension” between some of the literature available in the school and their religion.
However, she added the school was very aware of cultural sensitivities and as a result did not mark certain events in the calendar such as Pride.
The hearing continues.
