Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have publicly named a man and disclosed his street address and local area after he was charged with allegedly burning pages of the Quran, despite the clear and immediate risks posed to those accused of ‘blasphemy’ by radical Islamists.
The 47-year-old man has now pleaded guilty to causing racially and religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm, and distress after setting fire to the Islamic holy book in Manchester city centre, during a livestream on social media.
At Manchester Magistrates’ Court, the prosecution said the act had caused distress to a bystander, Fahad Iqbal, who attempted to intervene. In a victim impact statement, Iqbal told the court: “I was quite shocked, disgusted, and offended. I’m a Muslim. I still can’t believe someone would do this. When he began to burn the Quran, my heart was about to break out. This is the most emotion I have ever felt.”
Despite his guilty plea, GMP’s decision to disclose his personal details has provoked serious concerns, given the well-documented dangers faced by those accused of blasphemy. The Free Speech Union (FSU) believes GMP should have liaised with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) before making these details public. The failure to do so will almost certainly result in a direct threat to his life.
Footage posted on X shows a man standing in the Glade of Light, a memorial for victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, setting fire to pages of the Quran.
Following the arrest, Assistant Chief Constable Stephanie Parker said: “We understand the deep concern this will cause within some of our diverse communities and are aware of a live video circulating.” She added: “We made a swift arrest at the time and recognise the right people have for freedom of expression, but when this crosses into intimidation to cause harm or distress, we will always look to take action when it is reported to us.”
During the hearing, the defendant – who was visibly distressed and in tears – was defended by a duty solicitor. Judge Margaret McCormack, while acknowledging the recent loss of the defendant’s daughter, told him: “The Quran is a sacred book to Muslims, and treating it as you did is going to cause extreme distress. This is a tolerant country, but we just do not tolerate this behaviour.” The judge has ordered a pre-sentence report, with sentencing scheduled for April 29. As part of his bail conditions, the defendant is banned from posting on social media.
The incident follows a broader crackdown across Europe on acts deemed blasphemous. Indeed, social media posts accompanying the Manchester video claim the act was carried out in solidarity with Salwan Momika, the Iraqi-born activist at the centre of a major diplomatic crisis after publicly burning copies of the Quran in Sweden.
Momika, who sought asylum in Sweden, set fire to a Quran outside Stockholm Central Mosque in 2023, triggering protests across the Middle East. His actions led to violent demonstrations, diplomatic protests, and a tightening of Sweden’s laws on public desecration of religious texts. Last week, Momika was shot dead in his Stockholm apartment in what police described as a targeted attack.
In recent years, Sweden and neighbouring Denmark – both historically strong defenders of free expression – have moved to restrict Quran-burning protests under pressure from Muslim-majority countries. Denmark has criminalised the public desecration of religious texts, including the Quran, punishable by up to two years in prison. Sweden, meanwhile, is considering new legal measures to curb religiously offensive protests deemed a national security risk, following the successful prosecution of right-wing politician Rasmus Paludan for hate crimes after he burned the Quran during protests in Malmö in 2022.
These legislative shifts follow lobbying from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has long sought international restrictions on the so-called “defamation” of Islam. In bowing to diplomatic and security concerns, Scandinavian governments have set a perilous precedent, one in which secular democracies prioritise religious sensitivities over individual freedoms.
Blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales in 2008, reinforcing the principle that religious beliefs should not receive special legal protection from criticism. While the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence to use threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up religious hatred, Section 29J – which was introduced precisely to prevent the reintroduction of blasphemy laws in another form – explicitly protects expressions of criticism, antipathy, ridicule, and even insult toward religions and their adherents.
Yet despite these safeguards, recent cases suggest a shift toward indirect enforcement of blasphemy restrictions via public order, hate crime, and incitement laws. In this case, Greater Manchester Police arrested the man on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence. This charge originates under the Public Order Act 1986 – most likely under Section 4A or Section 5 – but is treated as “racially or religiously aggravated” under Section 31 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which increases the penalty where hostility toward a racial or religious group is demonstrated or presumed.
Nowhere is this shift more evident than in English schools. In Wakefield, four students were suspended in 2023 after a Quran was accidentally scuffed at Kettlethorpe High School. Though an internal investigation confirmed there was no malicious intent, West Yorkshire Police nevertheless recorded the incident as a “hate occurrence”, and one of the pupils – who was autistic – received death threats, briefly forcing him into police protection.
Similarly, in Batley, a teacher was driven into hiding in 2021 after displaying a cartoon of Muhammad during a religious studies lesson. This single act, undertaken during a lesson on blasphemy, led to several days of demonstrations outside the school gates, with large groups of Muslim men also gathering outside the teacher’s family home. In response, the school swiftly suspended the unnamed teacher pending a formal investigation. Gary Kibble, the headmaster, issued an “unequivocal apology” for the teacher’s use of a “totally inappropriate image”. Footage on social media showed police reading out the headteacher’s apology statement to the mob. After receiving death threats, the teacher was put into police protection and remains in hiding nearly four years on. According to his family, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and is unlikely ever to return home.
Across Europe, a pattern is emerging. While legal mechanisms are increasingly used to suppress religiously offensive speech, the parallel threat of mob violence ensures that even those who escape prosecution face severe consequences.
Book burnings are crude, deliberately provocative, and a poor substitute for reasoned debate. But as Jacob Mchangama points out for Unherd, “when conducted by private individuals, they serve as non-violent symbolic expressions intended to convey a message – the essence of free expression”. Given the UK’s legal protections for free expression, the arrest in Manchester raises a difficult question: Are we witnessing the quiet return of blasphemy laws, not only through public order and hate crime legislation but also through the ever-present threat of extrajudicial retaliation?
