Gary Kibble
Gary Kibble, the headteacher, apologised for the use of the cartoon.
More than 50,000 people have signed a petition to reinstate the suspended teacher accused of showing his class a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

Parents of children at Batley Grammar School protested outside the school for several days running last week after children said they had been shown the cartoon during a religious studies lesson.

Gary Kibble, the headteacher, apologised over the use of the "inappropriate" image, which is thought to have been taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The teacher has been suspended pending a full investigation but a petition calling for him to be reinstated, which is believed to have been started by other students at the school, has now passed 55,000 signatures.

The cartoons had been shown in previous lessons and by other teachers, a parent at the school said, as part of the integrative studies course.

The parent said that her daughter had seen the cartoon in a lesson last year with a different teacher. She added: "He's one of the best teachers at that school . . . young and not racist at all."

Another parent questioned why the school had not done more to defend him.

In an update, the students who started the petition wrote that the cartoons were meant to illustrate a discussion on what racism looks like. They wrote: "The RS teacher thought exactly the same, that the truth of racism needs to be shown to the world so that we understand and combat it in every aspect of our lives! We have watched our RS teacher defend the integrity of all religions within classes and we do not and will not believe he is racist in any way!"

The school's governors will meet shortly to discuss the cartoons, the teacher's suspension and how to proceed.

The teacher in question has not returned to his home for several days. Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said last week that reports that he had been forced into hiding were "very disturbing".

Baroness Falkner of Margravine, chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said that children should not have their education disrupted by protests and that people sharing the teacher's identity online were putting him at risk.

"The school is taking action and ought to be trusted to do so," she said. "A teacher's identity being shared, making them fear for their safety, is simply unacceptable and could result in enforcement action from the police."

Tracy Brabin, Labour MP for Batley & Spen and the party's mayoral candidate for West Yorkshire, appeared to alter her stance. After initially saying that the "upset and offence" caused by the cartoon was understandable, she said on Friday that it was wrong for the teacher to be facing intimidation and threats. She called for calm, saying that those who "seek to fan the flames of this incident will only provoke hate and division".

A campaign of Muslim parents and pupils, supported by local faith groups, also called for calm and a transparent investigation. The Batley Parents and Community Partnership, which is supported by local mosques, said in a statement that progress had been made with the school, and that they hoped for an "amicable resolution".

The Charity Commission raised regulatory concerns with a charity after it named the teacher in a letter published to social media. Purpose of Life, a Yorkshire-based charity, took down the post and said in a statement later that it was not the first to name the teacher but recognised that it had exposed him to abuse.

An imam at the centre of protests at Batley Grammar School over images of the Prophet Muhammad has apologised after apparently using social media to spread anti-vaccination propaganda (Graeme Paton writes). Mohammed Amin Pandor shared a religious ruling, or fatwa, that mentioned "uncertainty about the ingredients" in Covid-19 vaccines. It declared that God had given a "definite remedy for safety from every form of harm and disease", urging followers to recite a prayer three times.

Pandor also used his Twitter account to share a false story in 2017 that accused Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi, of saying that it would be permissible to take Christian and Muslim sex slaves. This weekend, he apologised for that post, saying that he had just found out that it was "fake news".

He also shared another fatwa from the British Islamic Medical Association that endorsed the jab. "Urging people to take up the vaccine," he wrote.

Pandor, 62, from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, was one of almost 200 clerics to sign a letter to The Times in 2015 condemning the Paris terror attacks.