A victory against Britain’s Islamic blasphemy laws

Believers in free speech haven’t had much to cheer about in Britain lately. Practically every week brings fresh news of the police feeling the collars of supposed thoughtcriminals. Yet today, Hamit Coskun scored an important legal victory. A court overturned his conviction for burning the Koran. It has established that we have a right to blaspheme against Islam.

In February this year, Coskun burnt a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in west London, while shouting ‘fuck Islam’ and ‘Islam is the religion of terrorism’. As he did so, he was attacked with a knife, kicked on the ground and spat on by a passerby. In June, Coskun was convicted of a racially motivated public-order offence at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and fined £248. The judge even cited the knife attack as evidence of his wrongdoing – proof, supposedly, that Coskun’s provocation had led to disorder. Last month, as if to rub salt into the wound, Coskun’s attacker, Moussa Kadri, was spared prison, receiving only a suspended sentence.

Today’s judgement in Southwark Crown Court has gone some way to ease the bitter taste of these judgements. Indeed, its verdict was a ringing vindication of civil liberties, the kind which used to be a feature of the English legal system. Justice Bennathan said:

‘There is no offence of blasphemy in our law. Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive. The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset. The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.

‘We live in a liberal democracy. One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so. The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.’

Hear, hear. Hurt feelings are never a justification for censorship. And the right to criticise religion must be sacrosanct.

With any luck, Bennathan’s judgement will trickle down through the British criminal-justice system. The police, especially, need reminding that their role is to protect our freedoms, not to continually undermine them. It is certainly not their role to act as the enforcers of Islamic blasphemy codes.

Hamit Coskun’s victory is a rare break in the clouds of censorship. Let us hope it is the start of a broader free-speech revival.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.