Five Muslim men are on trial for handing out controversial homophobic leaflets outside the Jamia Mosque in Derby in July 2010, suggesting that gay people should get the death penalty. Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, are also accused of putting the leaflet through people’s letterboxes in the neighbourhood. 

The cover of the leaflets had an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose, stating that buggery was a sin that led to hell. Another leaflet used the word “GAY” as an acronym for God Abhors You. The charges were made on the grounds of sexual orientation in the first prosecution of its kind since the new legislation came into force in March 2010, only a few months before the incident occurred. 

Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema was quoted as saying “The essence of this case will come down to this - an allegation of a hate crime, that these five defendants were part of a small group of men who distributed horrible, threatening literature, with quotations from religious sources and with pictures on them, which were designed to stir up hated and hostility against homosexual people”. 

It is shocking how people are still homophobic to this extent, using religious texts as an excuse to voice, and potentially exercise, their beliefs. It is estimated that 8% of men in the 21st century are homosexual, with the number most likely being higher due to the social desirability bias and negative stigma some people associate with being homosexual. With the large number of homosexual men, in our supposedly “open-minded” society, surely this type of behaviour shouldn’t happen, and it should certainly be crushed with an iron fist so as to make an example for any other extreme homophobes. 

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