Koran burner wins landmark blasphemy case

From the Telegraph

A man who burned a Koran in a demonstration outside the Turkish consulate has won a landmark blasphemy case at the High Court.

Hamit Coskun, 51, was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence after holding up a flaming copy of the holy book and shouting “f—- Islam”, in what he insisted was a political protest.

He successfully appealed the decision against the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who had claimed his actions were criminal and amounted to disorderly conduct.

In a judgment handed down on Friday, Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Obi upheld the decision to overturn the conviction.

Free speech campaigners had argued that if Mr Coskun lost his case, Britain would have introduced a blasphemy law by the back door.

Following Friday’s judgment, Lord Young of Acton, the general secretary of the FSU, said: “This appeal should never have been brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, just as Hamit should never have been prosecuted.

“We have not had blasphemy laws in this country for 18 years and for that reason, this prosecution was bound to fail.

“Yet the CPS has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to bring one back via the back door – and one that just enforces Muslim blasphemy codes, not Christian ones. In light of this humiliating defeat, I think the director of public prosecutions has no choice but to resign.”

Stephen Evans, the chief executive at the NSS, who co-funded Mr Coskun’s defence alongside the FSU, said: “This judgment makes clear that it is not the state’s job to police religious sensibilities. A hostile – even violent – reaction to speech cannot be allowed to determine whether that speech is criminal.

He called for a serious review of how and why the CPS came to charge Mr Coskun, adding: “Public confidence demands answers.”