A solitary protester burned a Koran and said “Islam is a religion of terrorism” outside the Turkish consulate in London in February 2025. A man who witnessed this rushed into his house to retrieve a bread knife which he brandished, and said I am going to f***ing kill you. The protester was injured and fell to the ground where he was kicked.
All this only lasted three minutes but has become something of a cause célèbre. The protester was prosecuted by the State, initially with harassing the ‘religious institution of Islam’ which would have been imprisonable. That appears to have been a blatant attempt by the State to introduce a severe blasphemy law for Islam through common law in conflict with the Human Rights Act and Article 10 of the ECHR. After a direct intervention by the (UK) National Secular Society (NSS) the prosecution was downgraded to a public order offence which did not carry any possibility of imprisonment.
The case has now been heard in three separate courts – most recently the High Court, at the behest of the State. Despite the State’s increasingly desperate efforts, the High Court upheld the previous court’s reversal of the protestor’s conviction. The State prosecutor is now facing threats of investigations and even calls for his resignation, especially for the original “blasphemy” charge and his refusal to accept any acquittal. We hope he will not attempt any further appeal, which might have to be to the Supreme Court.
The protestor, Hamit Coskun, was born in Turkey with Armenian and Turkish heritage and is seeking asylum in the UK. His protest was a political one (hence the choice of the consulate as a location) against the growing Islamisation of the once secular Turkish state. His family has suffered grievously from state persecution.
The NSS led the successful campaign to abolish the English (Christian) blasphemy law. We bore the legal expenses jointly with the Free Speech Union of all these cases.
We do not advocate book burning but maintain on grounds of freedom of expression that this – whatever the book – should not be a criminal offence.
The legal action against the assailant, who at least threatened to murder Coskun, could not have been more different. He was not charged with attempted murder, nor inflicting grievous bodily harm nor use of the bladed weapon (which he falsely denied until the very last moment of even having). He was convicted of the most trivial charge: assault and possession (not use) of a bladed weapon. And his sentence did not even include any time in prison, that was suspended.
Donald Trump has offered Coskun asylum in the US if the conviction is reinstated.
