Welcome to the Islamic theocracy of Great Britain

It’s a verdict that would make the Ayatollah smile. Today, in nominally liberal Britain, a man has been found guilty of a crime after he dared to burn a Koran in public. Hamit Coskun, a Turkish-born asylum seeker, has been convicted of a ‘religiously aggravated public-order offence’ over his – quite literally – incendiary protest outside of the Turkish consulate in London in February, against what he sees as the Islamist turn of Erdogan’s Turkey. If nothing else, Coskun’s stunt has exposed the Islamist-apologist turn of our own United Kingdom.

On paper, Coskun has been convicted of ‘disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress’, motivated by ‘hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam’, contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986. But we all know what that word salad really means in practice, regardless of the judge’s many assurances to the contrary. Coskun has been convicted, and fined £240, for blasphemy. All by a supposedly secular court.

The judgement, handed down by district judge John McGarva, is an elaborate exercise in victim-blaming. Coskun was assaulted at the scene by two men – first by a passerby armed with a knife, then by a delivery rider who kicked Coskun while he was on the floor. Remarkably, this is used as proof of his guilt. ‘That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people’, says McGarva. Thank God he wasn’t also wearing a short skirt, eh?

Similar intellectual acrobatics were required to prove that Coskun was motivated by a hatred of Muslims. He claims his beef is with the religion, not its followers. But McGarva was having none of it, citing Coskun’s belief that ‘Islam is an ideology which encourages its followers to violence, paedophilia, and a disregard for the rights of non-believers’. Whether or not this is an accurate or fair reflection of the faith, as practised by Muslims around the world, is totally irrelevant. The judge decided there was no difference between Coskun’s dislike of what he means by Islam and hatred of Muslims. So he hates Muslims because he hates Islam. I’m no legal scholar, but that strikes me as a rather circular argument.

In a free society, you should be free to hate whoever and whatever you like, of course. Indeed, this ruling is another grim reminder of the subjective, authoritarian mess you find yourself in when you invite the state to police what is and isn’t hateful – whether that’s racial, religious or whatever. Someone has to decide. And in this case it has been decided by a legalistic cretin who is totally blasé about ushering in medieval blasphemy prohibitions, albeit dressed up in hate-speech lingo.

Britain may have abolished its blasphemy law in 2008, more than three decades after the last blasphemy trial went to court. But it has returned, zombie-like, through public-order and communications offences. Coskun’s isn’t even the first trial of this kind. An English Defence League member was similarly convicted for religiously aggravated harassment in 2011, after he burned a Koran at a demonstration. Belfast preacher Pastor James McConnell was put on trial in 2015 for calling Islam ‘Satanic’ in his own pulpit. Given his sermon was also streamed online they tried (and, mercifully, failed) to stick him on making ‘grossly offensive’ comments under the Communications Act.

Brace yourselves for more. Not least as Coskun – who either has balls of steel or is nursing a death wish – has said he intends to go on a Koran-burning tour of some of the UK’s other great cities. So it might not be long before he ends up back in handcuffs again, unless ‘alarmed or distressed’ members of the community get to him first. We’re also still awaiting the sentencing of a man who burned his own copy of the Koran in Manchester just two weeks before Coskun’s stunt. (He immediately pleaded guilty.) For their part, Greater Manchester Police released not only his name, but also his address, to make it that bit easier for Islamist thugs to find him.

It won’t have escaped your attention that our new backdoor blasphemy laws only seem to cover one religion in particular. Those who seek to ringfence Islam – and Islam alone – from ridicule or criticism no doubt believe they are protecting an embattled little guy. But Coskun’s case rather complicates that narrative. The – incidentally – diminutive Coskun, an atheist, is seeking asylum in the UK, claiming he faced political persecution in his native Turkey. Now, he has been made a criminal before his asylum claim has even been processed. What’s more, the evidence from across the Islamic world is that it is liberal Muslims, dissenting Muslims and ex-Muslims who bear much of the brunt of blasphemy laws and anti-blasphemy violence. Acquiescing to this religious intolerance means throwing apostates and the minorities within Islam under the proverbial bus.

If we’re honest, this is as much about cowardice as it is idiocy. The reason laws are being mangled to punish anti-Islamic blasphemy is because there are hardline factions within Islam willing to take matters into their own hands otherwise. But that is no reason to give in. As the horrors in Pakistan show us – where blasphemers are punished via the law and the lynchmob – official intolerance only fuels and justifies violent intolerance. Plus, this double standard where Islam is concerned relies on a despicable caricature of British Muslims, as if they are strange, volatile characters who must forever be tiptoed around; exotic brutes who cannot possibly be expected to live in a truly free and secular society. As is so often the case under state multiculturalism, we are anointing the loudest, most intolerant, even Islamist, voices as the authentic voice of British Muslims.

One of the enduring arguments for blasphemy laws is that they are essential to maintaining order and harmony in society. As Lord Scarman put it in 1979 – when the House of Lords was reviewing England’s last successful blasphemy trial – blasphemy laws ‘safeguard the internal tranquility of the kingdom’. He even wanted our then Christian blasphemy laws extended to other religions, for the good of our increasingly ‘plural society’. How wrong he was. Free speech isn’t a recipe for conflict. It’s how we have out our differences without resorting to the sword or the law. Censorship, on the other hand? That way division – and violence – lies.

Tom Slater is editor of spiked. Follow him on X: @Tom_Slater