A Turkish-born man who desecrated the holy Quran in London was on Monday found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence, in a case taken up by free-speech campaigners.
Hamit Coskun, 50, shouted “Islam is religion of terrorism” as he desecrated the holy Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London in February.
District Judge John McGarva at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court found Coskun guilty of using disorderly behaviour “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress”.
He was motivated by “hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam”, said McGarva, who issued Coskun a £240 ($325) fine, with a statutory surcharge of £96.
“Your actions in burning the Quran where you did were highly provocative, and your actions were accompanied by bad language in some cases directed toward the religion and were motivated at least in part by hatred of followers of the religion,” said the judge.
State prosecutors insisted Coskun was not being prosecuted for desecrating the holy book.
“He is being prosecuted for his disorderly behaviour in public,” said Philip McGhee, for the Crown Prosecution Service.
A passerby filmed the incident, which also showed a man, allegedly holding a knife or bladed item, approaching Coskun and appearing to slash out at him, the court heard.
Coskun, an atheist who is currently claiming asylum in the UK, posted on social media that he was protesting against the “Islamist government” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
His legal fees are being paid by the Free Speech Union (FSU) and the National Secular Society, which argued that he was essentially being prosecuted for blasphemy, despite Britain’s free-speech guarantees.
The FSU called the verdict “deeply disappointing” on its X account.
“Everyone should be able to exercise their rights to protest peacefully and to freedom of expression, regardless of how offensive or upsetting it may be to some people,” it said.
In a statement issued through the FSU, Coskun said his conviction was “an assault on free speech”.
“Christian blasphemy laws were repealed in this country more than 15 years ago and it cannot be right to prosecute someone for blaspheming against Islam. Would I have been prosecuted if I’d set fire to a copy of the bible outside Westminster Abbey? I doubt it,” he added.
