Is it a crime to burn the Koran?
As a general rule, I treasure books and don’t believe in burning them. This applies to religious texts as well, I don’t really see the point in burning The Bible, The Koran or the Torah. However, if someone WANTS to burn any of these, I don’t have a problem with it, do you? Which brings me to this case of book burning which looks like nascent Blasphemy Laws in the UK….
Hamit Coskun, a 50-year-old Turkish-born atheist and asylum seeker, was convicted for burning a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in Knightsbridge, London. . The incident, which was filmed and shared on social media, involved Coskun shouting phrases such as “f*** Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” while holding the burning text aloft. He was charged with a religiously aggravated public order offence under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986, specifically for using disorderly behaviuor likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress, motivated by hostility toward Muslims.
Coskun pleaded not guilty, arguing that his actions were a peaceful protest against the “Islamist government” of Turkish President Erdogan and that burning the Koran was an exercise of his freedom of expression.
His defence, supported by the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, contended that prosecuting him was akin to reintroducing blasphemy laws, which were abolished in England and Wales in 2008. They argued that the act of burning a religious text, while offensive, should not be criminalised, citing the right to free expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
This is the core point we must be allowed to be offensive! Others must learnt to cope.
District Judge John McGarva at Westminster Magistrates’ Court found Coskun guilty, stating that his actions were “highly provocative” and motivated “at least in part by hatred of followers of the religion.” The judge rejected Coskun’s claim that his criticism targeted Islam as an ideology rather than its adherents, noting a “deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers” based on Coskun’s experiences in Turkey. Coskun was fined £240 with a £96 statutory surcharge.
Why can’t people “hate” Islam, or any other ideology for that matter ? How is that even a crime? Being offensive is part of our cherished freedoms and this decision is deeply troubling, Why is Islam lifted up beyond the point of critics?
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These judgements have become highly subjective and have little to do with the law or the sense of it.
Of course, it was an exercise of Freedom of Expression to protest outside the Turkish Embassy. Erdogan has turned Turkey into an Islamic state far from being the safe, secular state that Kemel Attaturk created and we all loved.
The book is just paper. It is not magic. It represents something that this man abhors and, as its content flies in the face of British morals and law, why should we give it undue respect in this country? Geert Wilders, who has read both the Koran and “Mein Kampf” by Adolph Hitler (still banned in the U.K.), said that the Koran was much the worse book. Probably it too should be banned here.
So why? Fear is the answer. The Muslims have terrorised us and what this very brave man was showing us is that there are some true asylum seekers from tyranny that we should be protecting, not submitting to their past abusers.
Shame on that judge for submitting to the terror of Islam! He is capitulating for us all when he made such a cowardly and lawless judgement. He is making matters worse not better in the long run.
This is ‘just’ a Magistrates court decision. If this was the left they would be launching their appeal and getting ready to take the fight to the ECHr. I hope the feee speech union are ready to challenge this decision in the higher courts.