By Lauren Smith, European Conservative. (image: RawPixel/public domain)
When our governments reward violence or the threat of violence with censorship, it sets a dangerous precedent.
In February this year, a man was viciously attacked outside the Turkish Consulate in London for burning a copy of the Quran. Fifty-year-old Hamit Coskun was assaulted by a random passerby, who appeared to slash at Coskun with a knife. When Coskun fell to the ground, the man reportedly kicked him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him. Incredibly, a second man—who looked to be a food delivery rider on a bicycle—also stopped to give Coskun a kick while he was on the ground.
The first trial relating to this case came to a close this week. Only it was not Coskun’s attackers who are being convicted for any crime right now—their time in court is still to come. Rather, it was Coskun himself who was guilty of a “religiously motivated public order offence.”
On Monday, district judge John McGarva convicted Coskun under the ACT at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The judge determined that Coskun’s actions were “highly provocative” and motivated, at least in part, by a supposed “deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers.” Coskun was fined £240, with an additional statutory surcharge of £96.
Naturally, Coskun—a Turkish-born atheist who sought refuge in the UK claiming persecution by the Turkish government— argued that his burning of the Quran was a matter of free speech. It was a provocative stunt aimed at criticising Islam and, specifically, what he called the “Islamist government” of Turkey. But all that was irrelevant to McGarva. According to him, Coskun’s dislike for Islam was indistinguishable from a hatred of all Muslims.
Incredibly, even the fact that Coskun was attacked twice for his protest did not soften McGarva’s judgement. It apparently only strengthened the case against him. “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.” In other words, Coskun was asking for it.