A Rare Victory for Free Speech in Great Britain
Hamit Coskun is a native of Turkey who now lives in the U.K., where he sought and was granted the status of political refugee. Coskun is an ex-Muslim who detests Islam, and to make clear his feelings about both Turkey and Islam, he set fire to a Qur’an outside the Turkish Embassy. The Crown Prosecution Service then prosecuted him for this act of what was termed “blasphemy,” and convicted him. He appealed the conviction and was acquitted by a higher court; then the Crown Prosecution, in turn, appealed that decision to acquit and tried to reinstate his conviction. But the High Court has just dismissed that appeal, standing up for the right of Hamit Coskun to express his contempt for Islam by setting a Qur’an on fire.
More on this rare victory for free speech — including “speech” that is non-verbal and performative — can be found here:
U.K. High Court Denies Prosecutor’s Appeal
Targeting Free Speech Activist
by Jules Gomes, Middle East Forum, March 5, 2026:
In a humiliating defeat for Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the High Court has dismissed an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) seeking to overturn the acquittal of a free-speech activist previously convicted of burning a Qur’an.
The CPS appealed to the High Court in November 2025 after the Southwark Crown Court dramatically reversed the sentence of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court against Hamit Coskun, who set fire to the Qur’an outside the Turkish Embassy in London on February 13, 2025.
Coskun, a 50-year-old political refugee from Turkey, committed an “act of desecration” while driven by a “deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers,” provoking Muslims to commit acts of violence, the CPS had argued, seeking a conviction under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
Judge John McGarva convicted Coskun in June 2025, ruling that he had committed a “religiously aggravated” offense. However, Justice Joel Nathan Bennathan quashed the verdict in October 2025, declaring: “There is no offense of blasphemy in our law.”…
As Judge Bennathan said in his opinion quashing the verdict convicting Coskin of blasphemy, there is no “offense of blasphemy” in British law. But there is such an offense in the law of Islam, the Sharia, and it was that “offense of blasphemy” that British judges were attempting to accept, and apply. Judge Bennathan was having none of it. According to him 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,” Bennathan emphasized, handing a victory to the ex-Muslim atheist whose mother’s family was killed in the Armenian genocide.
The CPS told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) that its case was “always that Coskun’s words, choice of location and burning of the Qur’an amounted to disorderly behaviour, and that at the time he demonstrated hostility towards a religious group.”
Yes, that’s exactly what he did. He was making a statement against Islam; he chose to do so for maximum effect right outside the Turkish Embassy. He did indeed “demonstrate hostility towards a religious group” — Muslims whose ancestors, he knew, were responsible for the murder of his Armenian mother and for another 1.2 million Armenians between 1915 and 1920. Why should he be punished for expressing his view?
The Coskun case will enter the history books as a major step toward retaking intellectual territory that had been conceded to the “sons of Allah,” a sign that we in the West do not punish what any religious group, including Islam, finds offensive.
In the U.K., after the High Court overturned the conviction of Hamit Coskun, no one should worry from now on that “blasphemy” will become a crime. Do what you want, whether you are a refugee from an Islamic regime, or simply a level-headed Western Infidel, to express your opposition to Islam. Hold up a placard depicting 54-year-old Muhammad holding the hand of nine-year-old Aisha. No one can argue that pedophilic coupling did not take place; it’s in the Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim.
Or do as Hamit Coskun did in London and Martin Frost did in Manchester, and burn a Qur’an if you wish, to demonstrate your antipathy toward the faith. You have that right. Or perhaps, most devastating of all, simply hold up a poster that does nothing more than quote from the Qur’an and hadith. Have people at an anti-Islam rally carry posters that say just this: “Muslims are the best of peoples” (Qur’an 3:110) and “Non-Muslims are the most vile of created beings.” (Qur’an 98:6). On other placards have two quotes from Muhammad that can be found in the hadith: “I have been made victorious through terror” and “war is deception.” The display of those four quotations will send Muslims into a rage, not because they are false, but because, far more devastatingly, they are true.
UK: Free Speech Union launches legal war on Labour’s ‘anti-Muslim hatred’ policy strategy
“Blasphemy by the backdoor” is an accurate way to describe the British government’s new definition of “anti-Muslim hate.”
It took years for patriots in Britain (and America) to gain the level of momentum that is now being seen in the significant pushback against forceful attempts to erode the cornerstone of free societies: the freedom of expression. Such freedoms do not exist in those Muslim countries which are oppressed under the Sharia.
Islamic supremacists knew exactly who would help them to establish Sharia tenets in the West: leftists.
Kudos to Britain’s Free Speech Union, established by Lord Young of Acton. It’s doing an honorable duty to Britain in the face of a weak, ruinous government that continues to undermine Britain — its traditions, Bill of Rights, and rule of law.
Anti-Muslim hostility definition: Free speech group launches legal war on Labour’s plans: ‘Back door blasphemy law’
by Lucy Johnston, GB News, March 11, 2026:
Free speech campaigners are launching a legal challenge against the Government over plans to introduce an official definition of “anti-Muslim hostility”, warning it could become a “blasphemy law by the back door”.
Campaigners warn the outcome of the case could shape the future boundaries of free speech in Britain, particularly when it comes to discussion of religion, belief and cultural issues.
The challenge is being mounted by the Free Speech Union, which says the proposal risks silencing legitimate debate about religion and could lead to tens of thousands of complaints every year.
The group is also challenging the Government’s decision to appoint an “anti-Muslim hostility tsar” tasked with overseeing how the definition is applied.
Critics fear the move could suppress free speech by encouraging organisations and institutions to punish people accused of offending Muslims – even when no law has been broken. They say existing legislation already protects people from discrimination….
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