U.K. Court Overturns ‘Blasphemy’ Verdict Against Qur’an-Burning Activist

Shadow Justice Secretary Calls for Guidance Against ‘Criminalizing Heresy’

Southwark Crown Court, where Justice Joel Nathan Bennathan overturned the conviction of Hamit Coskun, ruling that “there is no offense of blasphemy in our law.” Coskun was convicted of burning a Qur’an earlier this year.

Southwark Crown Court, where Justice Joel Nathan Bennathan overturned the conviction of Hamit Coskun, ruling that “there is no offense of blasphemy in our law.” Coskun was convicted of burning a Qur’an earlier this year.

(Jorge Franganillo via Wikimedia.)

In a dramatic win countering Islamist initiatives to criminalize blasphemy, a U.K. court has reversed the verdict against a free speech activist who was convicted of burning a Qur’an while driven by a “deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers.”

Would I have been prosecuted if I’d set fire to a copy of the bible outside Westminster Abbey? I doubt it.

Hamit Coskun

“There is no offense of blasphemy in our law,” Justice Joel Nathan Bennathan declared at the Southwark Crown Court on October 10, overturning the earlier sentence of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court against Hamit Coskun, an ex-Muslim atheist whose mother’s family was killed in the Armenian genocide.

Bennathan emphasized that the right to freedom of expression “must include the right to express views that offend, shock, or disturb,” even if it involves burning a Qur’an, “an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive.”

Criminal law “is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset,” the judge said, stressing that the price of living in a democracy is the right to express and be exposed to conflicting views “without the state intervening to stop us doing so.”

In his interpretation of sections 28 and 31 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, under which Coskun was convicted, Bennathan explained that “demonstrating hostility to a racial or religious group is not, by itself, an offense.” The law criminalizes “religiously aggravated” offenses as “motivated by hostility” based on the victim’s membership of a religious group.

In June, Judge John McGarva convicted Coskun under the 1998 Act, ruling: “I have found the offense religiously aggravated.” In his verdict, McGarva had explained that Coskun “believes Islam is an ideology which encourages its followers to violence, paedophilia, and a disregard for the rights of non-believers,” Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) reported.

Bennathan challenged McGarva’s ruling, clarifying that an offense is deemed to be religiously aggravated only when a person is found to have committed another crime which is then determined to be “a yet more serious crime by reason of their expressed prejudice.”

Coskun, a 50-year-old political refugee from Turkey, set fire to the Qur’an outside the Turkish Embassy in London on February 13, 2025, telling police he decided to burn the Islamic text “because he had studied it extensively and that it incited people to terrorism and encourages the beheading of non-believers.”

During the incident, Moussa Kadri attacked Coskun with a knife. A delivery driver kicked and spat at him after he fell to the ground. McGarva blamed Coskun for provoking his attackers, ruling: “There were likely to be Muslims in the location who would suffer harassment, alarm, or distress.”

Nick Timothy, a Conservative Member of Parliament has introduced a bill to stop judges from using laws against disturbing the public order to stifle criticism of Islam.

Nick Timothy, a Conservative Member of Parliament has introduced a bill to stop judges from using laws against disturbing the public order to stifle criticism of Islam.

(Photo by Roger Harris for U.K. Parliament)

Coskun, who was fined £240 with a statutory surcharge of £96, appealed the sentence, asking: “Would I have been prosecuted if I’d set fire to a copy of the bible outside Westminster Abbey? I doubt it.”

In September, Judge Adam Hiddleston allowed Kadri to walk free, with the Crown Prosecution Service opting not to bring charges of a “religiously aggravated” offense against the Islamist assailant, FWI reported.

Free speech campaigners warned that the courts had brought in a blasphemy law by the back door. “Britain has Islamic blasphemy laws. It is now beyond doubt,” Nick Timothy, MP, posted on X. Lord Young of Acton warned that the sentence “sends a green light to any Muslim who wants to enforce an Islamic blasphemy by taking the law into their own hands.”

Demonstrating to the prosecution why there was no case against Coskun, Justice Bennathan explained that the activist’s conduct was not aimed at a person. It was held not near a home or place of worship but outside an embassy—a location that is both secure and a valid site for political protests. Further, Coskun was alone, and his protest lasted only a couple of minutes.

With regards to the two assailants who attacked the activist, Bennathan warned that “the Courts should be wary of allowing the criminal reaction of one person to make a criminal of another for exercising their right to free speech.”

Shadow Justice Minister Robert Jenrick.

Shadow Justice Minister Robert Jenrick.

Shutterstock

Meanwhile, the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has written a strongly-worded letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions demanding a “full review” into Coskun’s case.

“Britain does not criminalize heresy. We protect people and public order—not ideologies,” Jenrick wrote, noting that the initial charge accused Coskun of causing harassment against the “religious institution of Islam,” was a “legal absurdity.”

“The Public Order Act protects people, not beliefs or institutions. Parliament abolished blasphemy in 2008; it is not for prosecutors to recreate it by novel drafting or for courts to police hurt feelings,” he maintained.

The parliamentarian urged the Crown Prosecution Service to immediately issue national guidance based on the recent ruling and to inform prosecutors that merely offending religious sensibilities is not an offense and that Section 5 of the Public Disorder Act requires disorderly behavior or threatening or abusive words.

“The ‘religiously aggravated’ provisions attach only where an underlying offense against a person is made out; they do not convert criticism or desecration of a text into a crime,” Jenrick stressed.

The Free Speech Union, which supported Coskun’s appeal, celebrated the victory, stating:

Had the verdict been allowed to stand, it would have sent a message to religious fundamentalists up and down the country that all they need to do to enforce their blasphemy codes is to violently attack the blasphemer, thereby making him or her guilty of having caused public disorder. Instead, the Crown Court has sent the opposite message—that anti-religious protests, however offensive to true believers, must be tolerated.

The verdict has emboldened Coskun to openly state his views on the threat of Islamism. “It is an undeniable fact that Islam educates people from infancy, coding them to be murderous and destructive,” he wrote on X on October 13, responding to a post claiming that Palestinians were blocking Red Cross vehicles from picking up the hostages in Gaza.

“Primitive teachings and barbarism that transform people into monsters have no place in modern, democratic, and civilized societies,” the activist declared.

Jules Gomes is a biblical scholar and journalist based in Rome.