BREAKING: Hamit Coskun’s Conviction for Burning Quran Overturned by Crown Court
Hamit Coskun’s criminal conviction for burning a copy of the Quran while shouting “f*** Islam” in a protest outside the Turkish consulate in London has been overturned by the Crown Court in a victory for free speech. The Mail has more.
Hamit Coskun, 51, was found guilty earlier this year of a religiously aggravated public order offence after he set fire to the book outside the Turkish consulate in London.
But, backed by free speech campaigners, he successfully appealed against the conviction, with a judge finding in his favour at Southwark Crown Court on Friday.
Coskun said he burned the Koran to highlight how Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s constitutionally secular government had become an “Islamist regime”.
During the protest in February, he was attacked by a knifeman and has since been assaulted near his home.
Overturning the conviction, Mr Justice Bennathan said: “There is no offence of blasphemy in our law.
“Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive.
“The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset.
“The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.”
Referring to Coskun’s conduct outside the Turkish consulate earlier this year, Mr Justice Bennathan told Southwark Crown Court: “This was clearly political speech or conduct.
“Insulting conduct is not sufficient and we should be careful not to read down the words we are considering.”
Mr Justice Bennathan also mentioned the fact that Coskun’s actions were not directed at a person or people in particular.
“We live in a liberal democracy,” the judge continued.
“One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so.
“The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.”
He added: “The criminal courts will interfere to protect people.
“A person who acts so as to cause harassment, alarm or distress to another may commit an offence.”
Toby (a.k.a.. Lord Young of Acton), speaking as Director of the Free Speech Union (which supported Hamit), said:
This is a huge victory for Hamit, the Free Speech Union, the National Secular Society and, above all, for freedom of expression.
Had the verdict been allowed to stand it would have sent a message to religious fundamentalists up and down the country that all they need to do to enforce their blasphemy codes is to violently attack the blasphemer, thereby making him or her guilty of having caused public disorder.
Instead, the Crown Court has sent the opposite message — that anti-religious protests, however offensive, must be tolerated.
Read the Mail‘s report in full here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Well done to the Free speech union, and another great win, thank you Toby
Hear, hear.
I’ll second that.
Victory over the compulsively offended.
Brilliant work. An absolute relief and well worth paying an FSU sub for.
Now are they going to enforce GBH and knife crime legislation and send his Muslim attacker down for 10 years? Thought not..
I’m sure his attacker and all the other Islamist Extremists in the UK will take note of the Judge’s comments and will adjust their behaviour accordingly.
After all, they’re as British as you and me and by simply obtaining a British passport they absorb all the values which the British people developed over centuries.
Well done the FSU
Oh good, now this Kurdish Terrorist and his family can return to his perfectly safe ancestral homeland of Armenia, which is 97% Christian, one of the oldest Christian nations in the world, where his mother came from before she married his Turkish father, before he himself spent 10 years in a Turkish prison for being a Kurdish Terrorist. Upon his release from prison, he and his family drove their car all the way across the continent of Europe through multiple safe countries to reach the UK and a lifetime of benefits, though they spoke no English and have no connection at all to the British Isles. But they all became impatient at the Home Office delays in granting him asylum, because the Home Office knew they were perfectly safe in Turkey and also in Armenia, so he pulled this publicity stunt to endanger himself, forcing the Home Office to grant him asylum and a lifetime of not only benefits for himself and his family, but also a lifetime of Police Protection for this Kurdish Terrorist and his family, paid for by British Taxpayers. They will be perfectly safe in his ancestral Christian homeland of Armenia, and there is no reason… Read more »
You may be 100% correct in what you say, but I’m glad he did what he did. His actions, and the subsequent case, has done free speech a priceless favour.
You’d have to search really hard to find many more freeloaders who have done UK citizens any favours at all.
That doesn’t mean we have to support this charlatan Kurdish Terrorist and his extended family for the rest of their lives, or that our beleaguered British Police and Security Services have to waste their time, energy and taxpayers money to “protect” them all for the rest of their lives.
Where is the Taxpayers Alliance when you need them?
Whilst I am not challenging what you write (I have not researched Mr Coskun as you clearly have), I would like to propose an alternative interpretation, in Mr Coskun’s absence here… Hamit grew up in Turkey at a time when everyone in this area had to choose between Turk and Kurd. His father, a Kurdish Turk, chose Kurd. They found themselves, inevitably, on the wrong side of the Turkish authorities and were labelled terrorist. They did not wish to emigrate to Mrs Coskun’s native Armenia. After serving his time for crimes real and/or crimes imagined, they decided to emigrate to a country of their choice. A difficult move for anyone, regardless of language abilities or connections or lack thereof. He was advised, perhaps badly, by British lawyers that his right to remain in the UK would arrive quicker if he followed the “asylum” route. He was dismayed to find, upon living in England for some time, that the British authorities and culture were patronising and supporting exactly the kind of crazy people he thought he had escaped. He became obsessed by the desire to open people’s eyes, both to the crimes (as he sees them) of Turkey against Kurds and… Read more »
Rubbish.
Don’t be a gullible fool.
I merely proposed it as an alternative interpretation of events.
Can Mr Coskun be made available for a reply?
He can reply from Armenia.
Muslims are hostile and intolerant to any religion that isn’t Islam and our right to freedom of expression/speech, and in the below example, men are hostile towards women. Therefore, example number 5,985 of why they do not belong in the West;
”In Amsterdam a Christian woman is preaching. She is assaulted by a Turkish Muslim and dragged by the hair.”
https://x.com/FarazPervaiz3/status/1976456535997022399
Where are the men?! He deserves to be lynched for that.
I know. A good dose of their own medicine, and then some, is all these arrogant bullies understand. But instead he gets to saunter off, full of nonchalance, confident nobody will do shit. Emboldened to repeat such behaviour whenever he feels like it. I just hope whoever filmed that ( because if there’s one thing you can count on nowadays it’s that any unfolding drama will be filmed by some random passerby ) has gone to the police and they’ve located him.
Phones are useful, but I sometimes wish that the first reaction isn’t to pick up a phone to film, but to get stuck in.
It’s easy to say, but my first reaction would be to take him to the ground. Honestly lost my cool watching it.
Same. I scare myself sometimes. Red mist. The reptile brain. Happens very rarely, but half an hour later I am shaking and thinking, “crap, he could have had a knife or anything…”
Don’t worry, you can get your new Charlatan Kurdish Terrorist friend to defend you.
Oh really.
Well, Hallelujah! One tiny wedge in the wall. Next please.
Good.
”“A person who acts so as to cause harassment, alarm or distress to another may commit an offence.”
Like the thousands in our streets shouting their hatred and threats at Jews, and those climate change loonies?
And what about Ed Minibrain and his Net Zero – isn’t he causing harassment, distress and alarm?
It all depends upon who gets to define harassment, alarm and distress.
Huge congratulations to Toby and the Free Speech Union. Excellent news and absolutely the right outcome. The magistrate who first convicted Hamit Coskun was quite a few sandwiches short of a picnic and clearly incompetent. He should be sent for some serious re-training before he is allowed to adjudicate in the courts again.
It should not be overlooked that the judge in the initial hearing is incompetent.
There are some cases where the principle isn’t legally clear, this isn’t one of them. He should be made some kind of example of to deter the others enacting their own idea of social justice.
Absolutely. 👍👍👍
It would be difficult to see how any subsequent cases could ignore this as a precedent. And any judge who might be seeking a Starmer star is going to be seriously out on a limb.
Thank God for Judge Bennathan. How appropriate the overtones of Bentham.
Congratulations and grateful thanks to all at the FSU.
they will completely ignore this precedent of course.
Of course.
Hooray!
If it wasn’t for digital identification – remember that? It’s impressive that its been wiped from the public consciousness so swiftly – I’d have said I could maybe see the first green shoots of a return to normal. But then I remember what’s being built around us, and I recall the brashness of their petition response, and I know they’re close to the end. Very close.
Hurrah for Mr Justice Bennathan.
Protect that man.
Not to worry— the Charlatan Kurdish Terrorist and his entire family, more of whom are already packing their bags to come here, will have a LIFETIME OF HOUSING AND PROTECTION by the British Police and Security Forces, costing British Taxpayers £millions.
Perhaps you can offer them lifetime protection in your own house, funded by yourself, while you and your family move into the garden shed…
I’ve emigrated, sorry.
We should follow the splendid example of AUSTRALIA, as described by one Aussie commenter:
“The UK is a joke.
No one in Australia gets residency or citizenship without passing an English language proficiency test.
No one gets into the Australian Parliament without denouncing their dual citizenship. They must be Australian only!
Immigrants must pass a TB and HIV test.
They must also PROVE THEY WILL NOT BE A BURDEN TO THE STATE!
Australia has NO SHARIA councils, courts or tribunals!
If you arrive illegally you will NEVER get citizenship!
British tolerance has Britain screwed.
Australians don’t have bleeding hearts, that’s the difference.
It ain’t rocket science… pull your socks up!”
They went stark raving loopy during Covid though!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Well done the FSU and Lord Tobes!
More judges like this please..
Excellent result. Well done to the Free Speech Union …. the best value £3 I spend every month 🙂
May I ask one question of all those celebrating this publicity stunt:
Would you still be congratulating him if he had burned a Jewish Torah or Christian Bible?
Mmmm!
The Bible is destroyed regularly. Ian McKellen infamously destroyed one on stage. To us Christians, it’s distasteful and disrespectful, but no Christian would pull a knife and attack anyone doing so, because the book itself isn’t sacred.
So yes. If a man was attacked in the street with a knife for destroying a book, I would congratulate him for this outcome.