What do you think would happen if someone burned a copy of the Bible or the Torah on the streets of this country? I’ll tell you – absolutely bloody nothing. No-one would bat an eyelid. It was a different story though when Hamit Coskun burned a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in London in protest at what he calls President Erdogan’s Islamist government in Turkey.
You’d think what Coskun did this would be legitimate protest in a liberal democratic country like Britain? But no he was hauled into court and found guilty of disorderly conduct which the court said was “motivated by hostility towards members of a religious group. Namely followers of Islam.”
Can that be right – that it’s now a crime in this country feel hostility towards a religious group? Because unless I’ve been living in an alternative universe that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing on the streets of this country for months with Gaza protesters abusing, screaming and threatening Jewish people.
But are they dragged into court? Are they subjected to vile death threats? Are they actually attacked and threatened with a knife like Hamit Coskun was?
Nah – none of that. We just see the cops standing idly by while it’s happening pretending they haven’t seen it. Week after week we hear and see anti-semitic bile spewed out by those Gaza protesters and its written off as freedom as speech so why wasn’t what Hamit Coskun did treated the same?
And I’m wondering have the people who burned the Union Flag at one of those recent protests in London and then urinated on it been arrested and charged? I’m guessing not. Because as vile and disgusting and aggressive as those yobs were what they did isn’t actually a crime.
But thanks to our ludicrous Crown Prosecution Service and a judge called John McGarva, Hamit Coskun has been convicted of what amounts to blasphemy – a crime which was rightly abolished here back in2008.
So, how did it happen that the CPS and Judge McGarva could suddenly resurrect a law that is in wilful defiance of Parliament?
In fact so determined was the CPS to mount a prosecution against Coskun – one assumes to placate the Muslim community in this country – that it ludicrously conflated the religious institution of Islam with Muslims as people.
The CPS essentially tried to say Coskun had committed a public order offence against a religion which is impossible under English law.
So, having made a fool of itself once it went after Coskun again and this time charged him with causing distress, harassment and alarm.
Who did he cause distress and alarm to? The only person near him that day was the ranting, screaming bloke who attacked him and proceeded to batter seven bells out of him outside the embassy when he saw him burning the Quran.
Yet, still he was convicted and with that conviction came a brand new blasphemy law by the back door in a country which banned those laws back in 2008.
I’m sorry but people ARE allowed to protest in this country no matter how distasteful or offensive that might be. We’re constantly told that aren’t we?
And so if some religious people were offended by what Coskun did maybe they should accept that THIS is the price we pay for living in a multi ethnic, multi-cultural society.
Time and again we’re told that we have to be tolerant of ALL religions – even those that grossly offend us because they do not respect the values and even the laws of this land.
But what’s clear in 2025 is that some religions seem to be more important and more tolerated than others. And offence suffered by people in those religions is deemed to be more important than the offence felt by say Christians or Jews.
Which is why Hamit Coskun’s conviction in Westminster Magistrates Court this week must be appealed and overturned because laws that defy the will of Parliament cannot be created by the CPS and the judiciary.
Toby Young of the Free Speech Unions says: “Social cohesion means that we tolerate the different religions practised in our midst. It doesn’t mean we have to respect THEIR blasphemy codes.”
And he’s right – it damn well doesn’t. There can’t be one rule for Muslims in this Christian country of ours and another for everyone else.
We can’t have our freedom of speech neutered by people who spit on it and don’t respect what its taken hundreds of years for men and women to achieve – to be able to speak freely without fear of being criminalised.
As Toby Young says: “No one should be prosecuted for burning a copy of the Quran any more than they should for burning a copy of the Bible.”
Hear Hear!
In a liberal democracy like Britain people should be able to mock or criticise religions without being attacked or murdered for it.
That does happen in other countries but it must not be allowed to happen here. Nor must our judiciary become agents for radical Islam.
Hamit Coskun has already had hundreds of death threats from people in this country. He’s also been attacked by two men who came to his hotel room and told he will die for what he did.
Does that sound like religious tolerance to you?
