by David Shipley, Spectator
Officially, blasphemy was abolished by New Labour in the 2008 Criminal Justice Act. But today, with the conviction of Hamit Coskun, blasphemy laws now exist in England.
This law has been created by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and District Judge John McGarva. Between them they have prosecuted and found a man guilty of a ‘religiously aggravated public order offence’ because he burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate. The CPS mounted a prosecution conflating the religious institution of Islam, with Muslims as people, and a British judge has accepted this. Islamic blasphemy codes are now being enforced by arms of the British state, via what the National Secular Society describes as ‘a troubling repurposing of public order laws as a proxy for blasphemy laws’.
Read also: Peers call for ‘misguided’ efforts to define Islamophobia to be scrapped, The Christian Institute
Watch: No special treatment for Islam – speech in the House of Commons by Nick Timothy MP