Koran-Burner Hamit Coskun’s Appeal to be Decided by Pro-Free Speech Judge
A judge who has argued in favour of free speech will rule on the appeal of Hamit Coskun, who was convicted of burning the Koran outside the Turkish consulate on February 13th. The Telegraph has the story.
Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence during a protest outside the Turkish consulate on February 13th.
The 51 year-old held the religious text above his head in flames, and shouted: “Islam is a religion of terrorism.”
Coskun is due to appeal against his conviction on October 8th and it has now emerged that the case will be dealt with by Mr Justice Joel Bennathan, the High Court judge, at Southwark Crown Court.
Only a handful of cases sent for appeal from the magistrates court have been overseen by a High Court judge.
In one of those, Sir Joel himself overturned the conviction of Bob Stewart, the former MP found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.
Mr Stewart, 76, was convicted after telling an activist to “go back to Bahrain” during an argument outside the Foreign Office in December 2022.
Sir Joel found that while Mr Stewart’s comments towards Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei had amounted to abuse, they did not cause alarm or distress.
He ruled: “The fact that even after Mr Stewart’s abusive comments, Mr Alwadaei continued to address him in similar terms and at a similar pitch would scarcely suggest to an observer that he was caused any upset, alarm or distress.”
He acknowledged that Mr Alwadaei felt that the comments were racist, but said: “The feelings of the person against which the abusive comments are directed are not determinative but not irrelevant.”
Sir Joel has previously championed free speech. In 2019, before he became a judge, he wrote an article after pro-Brexit protesters shouted “Nazi” at Anna Soubry, another former MP. …
Jill Levene, the Deputy Legal Counsel at the Free Speech Union, said: “This appeal is not just about Hamit Coskun’s conviction – it is about defending freedom of expression for everyone. We hope this challenge will reaffirm that peaceful political protest, no matter how provocative, must remain protected in a free society and that no religion should command special legal immunity from criticism or dissent.”
Worth reading in full.
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Which race is Islam anyway??
Fingers crossed…
“Islam is a religion of terrorism.”
The bare facts are these: since 1979 Muslims have carried out over 48,000 terrorist attacks, murdering hundreds of thousands people – the great majority of whom are Muslims. These murders are invariably excused by reference to Islam’s holy texts.
Only in madleft clown-world is pointing this out “racist”.
And of course it’s worth pointing out that “racist” is the madleft’s default accusation of heresy, an accusation which is only ever directed at white people – because it’s designed to make white people shut up about their worries and concerns. This means that the accusation springs from madleft anti-whitism.
1400 years of Jihad terror. Millions of Christians enslaved, murdered. Entire civilisations wiped out. An estimate 50 million Hindus and Buddhists, killed and enslaved.
Mein Koran. Mein Kampf. Ban Mein Koran.
Did the immediate reaction to Mr. Coskun’s argument outside the Turkish embassy not confirm it’s validity?
No, that was just a set-up by the Charlatan and his secret pal (probably a fellow Kurdish Terrorist “Refugee”) to brandish a knife around without actually harming a hair on the Charlatan’s head, but making sure to photograph the little scene to give his asylum claim extra validity. Did Hordes of Angry Turks come rushing out of the Turkish Embassy to behead him on the spot? Um, no… How about a large burly Turkish doorman flattening him for burning the Koran? No…
Just like his later claim to have been “attacked” at home by two Syrians or some such, who threatened him with a knife and a big scary ashtray (yes, really), and then they just left without harming a hair on his head. The police must have been rolling their eyes back in the patrol car…
Hamit Coskun is a CHARLATAN wasting the Free Speech Union’s time and money.
He was imprisoned for years in Turkey for being a Kurdish Terrorist, and then FREED to get on with his life in Turkey with his family. If he wanted to live elsewhere, he should have gone to his mother’s native land of Armenia, just over the border, instead of travelling thousands of miles across the entire length of Europe, crossing many safe European countries, to claim Fake Asylum in Britain.
But because the British immigration officials were aware that neither he nor his family were in any danger in Turkey, they put his Fake Asylum application at the bottom of the pile. When he lost patience with the delay of a couple of years, he decided to pull this PUBLICITY STUNT, so that he could claim to be in real danger and get his Fake Asylum application rushed through, as well as wasting British Taxpayers’ money on British Police Protection for this charlatan forever, presumably.
He and his family are now guaranteed a Lifetime of Free Stuff, which is why they came here in the first place.
Hamit’s personal situation has little to do with the free speech interest of this, the point is it’s potentially setting a precedent for everyone else, including you.
No, it has no “Free Speech Interest”, because it was a Fake Publicity Stunt carried out to speed up the Fake Asylum application of a Kurdish Terrorist who was in no danger at all.
And to top it all off, The Charlatan has the brass neck to claim to be some kind of hero, taking shameless advantage of the most compassionate people on the planet: Ethnic Europeans.
How on earth you can say this has nothing to do with free speech beggars belief, even if he was doing it to get lifelong “free stuff”. If the result of his case is clarification of the law that anyone can burn any book they like, then he will have done the ENTIRE country a massive favour.
I second that. The motivations of the people involved with this don’t matter at all. The important bit is that it ought to be perfectly legal for people to destroy their own property insofar they feel like it for some reason. Coskun bought a book he then burnt. Minus possibly issues with fire safety and/ or regulations for disposing of litter, that’s nobody’s business but his own.
Wrong. It’s the business of EVERY BRITISH TAXPAYER, who will be forced to fund this scrounger and his family for the rest of their lives, including you, if you pay taxes in the UK.
Really? Tell him to go to the Israeli Embassy and burn a copy of The Talmud, or to Westminster Cathedral and burn a copy of the Bible, then get back to me.
What’s your point? What do *you* think will happen if he does?
My guess would be ‘sod all’ – and we’d still be in the same position of Islam being the favoured religion worthy of most protection.
So this is absolutely unacceptable on every level. British kids being singled out and punished for being patriotic, with no rationale given by the head whatsoever. And what on earth is ”isolation” when it’s at home?; ”Dozens of students have been sent to isolation for wearing Union Jacks on a ‘culture day’ at school. Pupils at Ormiston Sandwell Community Academy in Oldbury, West Midlands, were reportedly asked to wear outfits to reflect their heritage, prompting lots to proudly wear colours of the Union Jack. However, pupils were made to “feel like wearing something British was dirty” after being sent to isolation rooms. Mum Leanne Wehrle says her 15-year-old daughter Isobelle, who draped a flag over her shoulders, was among those held in meeting rooms. She claims children who donned different flags, such as Spain and Jamaica, were not met with the same treatment. After pleading her case, Isobelle was even suspended for five days for arguing, Leanne told The Sun. Leanne, 39, said: “Isobelle was put into an isolation room almost immediately, as were about 30 other kids. “When she asked the head why, all he could say was, ‘Because it’s not allowed’. Isobelle never gets into trouble — not until… Read more »
We are at war with The Left. They are destroying our culture from within, ie they are traitors.
This is going to end in nationwide violence if no politician with balls can be found to turn it around and restore us politically and, frankly, culturally to where we were before Blair came to power.