by Charles Hymas, Telegraph
A Turkish asylum seeker who burned a copy of the Koran outside his country’s London embassy could have his acquittal overturned despite claims that it could “reintroduce blasphemy laws by the back door”.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, will go to the High Court on Tuesday to seek to reinstate the conviction of Hamit Coskun for a religiously aggravated public order offence.
Mr Coskun, 51, who has been backed by free speech campaigners, held a flaming copy of the religious text aloft while shouting “Islam is religion of terrorism” outside the Turkish consulate last February.
His case is seen as crucial to the right to criticise religions, with campaigners claiming his prosecution amounts to the back door reintroduction of a blasphemy law.
He was convicted at Westminster magistrates’ court last June of a breach of the Public Order Act. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued that while there was no law to prosecute people for blasphemy, his choice of location and burning of the Koran amounted to disorderly behaviour.
But his conviction was overturned on appeal at Southwark Crown Court. Mr Justice Bennathan ruled that burning a book of such religious importance might be something “many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive”, but this was trumped by the right to freedom of expression, which, the judge said, “must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb”.