Priests, rabbis and imams as well as other religious leaders will have to join a national register for faith leaders as part of the Home Office's plan to tackle extremism.
Those on the list will be subject to training and security checks.
The controversial proposal, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, was leaked in a draft of the government's counter-extremism strategy.
The document is due out this autumn.
It says it will "require all faiths to maintain a national register of faith leaders" and that the government will "set out the minimum level of training and checks" that faith leaders will have to go through.
Registration will be compulsory for any faith leaders that want to work in the public sector, including universities.
In practice this would cover almost all faith leaders as many people often deal with the public.
A spokesperson from the Catholic Church said that it had not been consulted on the proposals and another anonymous source said the proposals would be "firmly resisted".
No comments:
Post a Comment