A date has been announced for FSU member Hamit Coskun’s appeal against his conviction for burning a copy of the Koran. It will be heard on October 8th at Southwark Crown Court, with the FSU and the National Secular Society jointly funding his continuing fight for justice after supporting him in the original trial.
Hamit was found guilty at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in June of using disorderly behaviour “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress” under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. District Judge John McGarva also found that Coskun was “motivated at least in part by hostility towards members of a religious group”, meaning the offence was treated as religiously aggravated under section 31(1)(c) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
During the trial, Coskun’s barrister, Katy Thorne KC, argued that the prosecution unlawfully interfered with his Article 10 right to freedom of expression. Political expression, she said, enjoys the highest level of protection, extending even to speech that is “offensive, shocking or disturbing”.
While the judge accepted that Coskun’s Article 10 rights were engaged and conducted a proportionality analysis, he concluded that the interference was justified. “The consequences of the defendant’s provocative behaviour were that serious public disorder did break out,” he wrote. “The Public Order Act does recognise the right of an individual to criticise religion in general,” he added, “and those criticisms could have easily been made in a less provocative way.”
Oddly central to District Judge John McGarva’s ruling was the very fact that Hamit’s behaviour had provoked a violent reaction: “That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted.” In other words, the fact that Hamit was attacked by a knife-wielding man was treated not as a consequence of his protest, but as evidence of its criminality.
The judge’s other key finding concerned motivation. Coskun consistently maintained that he was protesting against Erdoǧan and his government’s increasing use of religion in public life, not Muslims as a group. But the court rejected that argument. “It is not possible to separate [Coskun’s] views about the religion from his views about its followers,” Judge McGarva concluded. “He has a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers… I am sure that his motivation was in part due to hostility towards Muslims.”
That finding of religious hostility triggered section 31 of the Crime and Disorder Act, upgrading the offence from public disorder to a religiously aggravated hate crime, and resulting in a sentencing uplift. It also blurred the crucial distinction between criticism of a belief system and hostility towards those who adhere to it.
This is the heart of the matter, and the danger of the precedent now set. If every protest against Islam is presumed to be a protest against Muslims then space for lawful criticism of that religion – or any religion – collapses.
As the FSU’s deputy legal counsel Jill Levene says: “This appeal is not just about Hamit Coskun’s conviction – it is about defending freedom of expression for everyone. We hope this challenge will reaffirm that peaceful political protest, no matter how provocative, must remain protected in a free society and that no religion should command special legal immunity from criticism or dissent.”
To donate to Hamit’s appeal, please click here.
