A flag of the United Kingdom. (Credit: AFP.)
BEIRUT — A man who burned a Quran in February in front of the Turkish consulate in London was fined £240 (284 euros) by the British court on Monday.
Hamit Coskun, 50, a Turkish national, was found guilty of public disorder with the aggravating circumstance of inciting religious hatred. On February 13, this man, residing in the Midlands (central England), went to the vicinity of the Turkish consulate in London where he set fire to a copy of the Quran while shouting "Fuck Islam" and "Islam is the religion of terrorism."
"Your act of burning the Quran where you did was eminently provocative," said Judge John McGarva of the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London when delivering the verdict. He added that the defendant's statements were "at least partly motivated by hatred towards Muslim believers."
Hamit Coskun was fined £240 (284 euros) with a legal surcharge of £96 (113 euros). During the trial, the prosecutor emphasized that the defendant was not prosecuted for burning the Quran but for causing a public disorder.
According to a video shown in court, filmed by a passerby at the time, a man armed with a sharp object approached the defendant, chased him, and then struck him. Coskun, who describes himself as an atheist, explained that he acted this way to denounce the "Islamist government" of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After the sentence was handed down, he denounced "an attack on freedom of expression."
His legal costs were covered by two organizations that defend freedom of expression, the Free Speech Union (FSU) and the National Secular Society. They believe that this sentence is akin to a conviction for "blasphemy," a crime abolished in 2008 in England and Wales. "Everyone should be able to exercise their right to protest peacefully and to freedom of expression, no matter if it may offend or shock some people," wrote the FSU on social media platform X after the verdict.