Prosecutors have failed to overturn the acquittal of a man who burned a copy of the Koran outside London’s Turkish embassy.
Hamit Coskun was initially convicted last June of religiously aggravated public order after holding a flaming copy of the Islamic text aloft and shouting ‘f*** Islam’ on February 13, 2025.
The 51-year-old successfully appealed against the conviction, which was overturned by Mr Justice Bennathan at Southwark Crown Court last October.
And the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) High Court appeal against this decision has been dismissed by Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Obi.
‘We are not persuaded that the court left any material factor out of account or relied on any immaterial factor,’ the judges said in their ruling.
Following the decision, Mr Coskun said: ‘In England, I hoped that I would be free to speak about the damage of sectarian politics and Islamism.
‘I am relieved that after a year, the courts have ruled that I am free to do so.’
Hamit Coskun, pictured outside the Royal Courts of Justice, had his conviction overturned by Mr Justice Bennathan at Southwark Crown Court last October
When he held the flaming Koran aloft outside the Turkish embassy last February, a man emerged from a nearby building and slashed at him with a large knife
During Mr Coskun’s demonstration in Knightsbridge, central London, a man emerged from a nearby building and slashed at him with a large knife, later telling police he was protecting his religion.
The attacker, Moussa Kadri, was given a suspended prison sentence in September.
Mr Coskun thanked the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union for their support during the case.
National Secular Society chief executive Stephen Evans called for a ‘serious review’ of why Mr Coskun was originally charged and why the CPS took the case to the High Court.
‘The High Court has rightly rejected this wrongheaded attempt to introduce a blasphemy law by the back door,’ he said.
‘However offensive some may have found the Koran-burning protest, it was lawful. ‘Criminal law protects people from harm, not from being offended.
‘This judgment makes clear that it is not the state's job to police religious sensibilities.
‘A hostile - even violent - reaction to speech cannot be allowed to determine whether that speech is criminal.’
Mr Coskun (centre) with supporters at the Royal Courts Of Justice. He was supported by the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union
General secretary of the Free Speech Union called for director of public prosecutions Stephen Parkinson to resign following the ruling.
‘This appeal should never have been brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, just as Hamit should never have been prosecuted.
‘We have not had blasphemy laws in this country for 18 years and, for that reason, this prosecution was bound to fail.’
The CPS will be carefully reviewing the High Court decision, a spokesman said.
‘There is no law to prosecute people for “blasphemy” and burning a religious text on its own is not a criminal act - our case was always that Hamit Coskun's words, choice of location and burning of the Koran amounted to disorderly behaviour, and that at the time he demonstrated hostility towards a religious group,’ they added.
Lawyers for the CPS told a hearing in February that the judge was wrong to find that Mr Coskun's behaviour was not ‘disorderly’ and, if it was, was unlikely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
David Perry KC said in written submissions that Mr Coskun's prosecution was ‘not an attempt to introduce an offence of blasphemy’ and was not ‘an impermissible encroachment’ on his right to free speech.
In written submissions on behalf of Mr Coskun, Tim Owen KC said that the CPS's appeal was ‘unarguable’ and ‘merely seeks to rehash arguments’ that had already failed.
And in their 14-page ruling, Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Obi said the CPS's submissions ‘are essentially no more than counter-arguments offering a different perspective, or a different approach to the facts and circumstances of the case’.
Mr Coskun was fined £240 after his conviction, with District Judge John McGarva stating that he had a ‘deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers’.
But overturning his conviction, Mr Justice Bennathan ruled that the right to freedom of expression ‘must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb’, and that the criminal law ‘is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset’.
