He argued the act was freedom of speech
A person discovered responsible of a religiously aggravated public order offence for burning a Koran outdoors the Turkish consulate in London, has gained an attraction at Southwark Crown Court docket in opposition to the conviction. Hamit Coskun was discovered responsible in June of religiously aggravated public dysfunction, having shouted “f*** Islam”, “Islam is faith of terrorism” and “Koran is burning” whereas holding the flaming spiritual textual content outdoors the Turkish consulate on February 13, 2025.
Mr Justice Bennathan instructed Southwark Crown Court docket: “The prosecution haven’t succeeded in making us certain that the defendant’s conduct has been disorderly or that it was throughout the listening to or sight of somebody who might turn out to be harassed, alarmed, or distressed.”
Earlier than travelling to London, the 51-year-old wrote posts on social media detailing his plan and saying it was to “protest the Islamist authorities” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he claimed “has made Turkey a base for radical Islamists and is attempting to determine a Sharia regime”, the court docket heard.
Tim Owen KC, talking on behalf of Coskun, instructed the attraction listening to at Southwark Crown Court docket his shopper’s conduct was the authorized train of his proper to freedom of expression below Article 10 of the European Conference on Human Rights (ECHR) and was a “completely reliable expression of his opinion on Islam”.
“Mr Coskun making that protest outdoors the Turkish consulate as he did was attacking the establishment of Islam, and the e book,” Mr Owen instructed the court docket. “He was not at any level saying: ‘F*** Muslims’ or individualising.”
Philip McGhee, showing on behalf of the prosecution, instructed the listening to Coskun’s motion was “motivated, at the least partly, by hostility in the direction of followers of Islam”. Mr McGhee quoted social media posts written by Coskun previous to the incident, which stated: “Koran is a e book that orders terror, permits plunder, rape, paedophilia, and doesn’t recognise the appropriate to life for anybody outdoors the Islamic religion” and “Islam is a terrorist ideology”.
Whereas he burned the holy e book outdoors the Turkish consulate, Coskun was attacked by a person known as Moussa Kadri, who got here out of a residential constructing and instructed Coskun “I’m going to kill you”, earlier than returning and slashing at him with a knife. Kadri later instructed police he was defending his faith.
Mr McGhee stated Coskun should have been conscious that his actions could also be disorderly by the point that Mr Kadri emerged from the neighbouring constructing, and that Mr Kadri was “evidently distressed” by Coskun’s actions earlier than he went on to assault him.
The prosecution added that “any passing member of the general public involved with the preservation of peace and tolerance and the avoidance of non secular rigidity, in addition to any follower of Islam, would possible be prompted harassment, alarm or misery by the appellant’s disorderly behaviour.”
Coskun additionally made generalising feedback throughout his police interview that have been hostile in the direction of Muslim, the court docket heard – together with: “All these Muslim individuals have been raping younger youngsters, younger women – every single day, I’d learn. 99% of these rapists are Muslim. 150 years later they wish to change the demographic state of this nation as a result of they preserve breeding extra individuals.
“They may use violence.”
Mr Justice Bennathan instructed the court docket: “These are profoundly delicate points. Individuals say stuff that’s silly, ignorant, offensive, upsetting – individuals say stuff that they shouldn’t say. However to then go on to say that that’s against the law is a completely totally different proposition.”
The Nationwide Secular Society (NSS), which is funding Coskun’s authorized charges alongside the Free Speech Union (FSU), criticised Coskun’s conviction as a repurposing of the general public order act into “a type of fashionable blasphemy legislation”.
Blasphemy was abolished as a typical legislation offence in England and Wales in 2008. The NSS chief government Stephen Evans stated the appropriate to free speech “should embrace the appropriate to offend”. “We’re supporting Hamit Coskun’s attraction to not endorse his actions, however to defend an important precept – that free speech should embrace the appropriate to offend,” he stated.
“Coskun’s conviction repurposes public order legal guidelines as a way to punish offensive expression – utilizing them in a manner that goes far past what Parliament ever supposed, and which dangers reworking them right into a type of fashionable blasphemy legislation. Coskun’s peaceable protest prompted no hurt, but he was convicted as a result of others selected to react with violence.
“We imagine this judgment units the bar far too low for when the state can intervene with the appropriate to free expression. If we enable offence – or the specter of violence – to find out the bounds of expression, we hand extremists a veto over free speech itself.”
Turkey-born Coskun, who’s half-Kurdish and half-Armenian, was initially charged with intent to trigger “harassment, alarm or misery” in opposition to “the spiritual establishment of Islam”, the NSS stated. Following interventions by the NSS, the Crown Prosecution Service stated the wording of the cost was “incorrectly utilized” and substituted a brand new cost.
Final month, Coskun’s attacker Moussa Kadri, 59, was spared jail after pleading responsible to assault and having a bladed article in a public place. The shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick attended Southwark Crown Court docket in assist of Coskun.
He stated in a brief assertion outdoors the court docket constructing: “I don’t agree with what Mr Coskun did however I don’t imagine it’s against the law. Parliament made a vital determination 20 years in the past to abolish our blasphemy legal guidelines and we are able to’t enable them to be re-created by the again door, inadvertently, by our court docket service.
“Free speech is below risk in our nation and we have now to defend it in any respect prices, and that typically means defending those that do stuff you gained’t condone your self.”
