Judge says Hamit Coskun has ‘right to offend’ and overturns conviction for religiously aggravated public order offence
A man who was fined for setting fire to a Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate in London has won an appeal against his conviction after a judge backed his “right to offend”.
Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence in June after shouting “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” while burning the holy book in February.
Westminster magistrates court had found that Coskun’s actions were motivated at least in part by hostility towards Muslims due to prejudicial comments he made in his police interview. Coskun had argued his public criticism was of Islam in general rather than its followers.
In a legal challenge backed by the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, Coskun had the conviction overturned at Southwark crown court on Friday.
