IN THE UK, DON'T YOU DARE CRITICIZE ISLAMISTS

National Review

 

U.K.: Don’t You Dare Criticize Islam

By Abigail Anthony

June 25, 2025 6:30 AM

 

The case of a Koran-burning reveals double standards in the English justice system.

 

Hamit Coskun is a 50-year-old man who was born in Turkey and served time in a Turkish prison for crimes he claims he did not commit. In England, he was sentenced for another supposed crime: saying mean things and disliking people.

 

On June 2, Judge John McGarva sentenced and fined Coskun £240 with a statutory surcharge of £96 (roughly $450 USD in total) for setting fire to a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London while yelling profanity-laden condemnations of Islam like “f*** Islam” and “Islam is [the] religion of terrorism.” Coskun insisted that the demonstration signified opposition to Islam, not Muslims themselves, as well as the current Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom Coskun sees as steering the country toward sharia law. Judge McGarva stated that “the burning of the Quran was carried out in a very visible way,” and he ultimately found Coskun guilty of a religiously motivated public order offense under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986.

 

In his sentencing remarks, McGarva wrote, “I find that the defendant has a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers,” even though Coskun had (through his limited English) repeatedly insisted that his criticism was directed toward Islam and terrorists, not all Muslims — which is consistent with the fact that the protest was outside the Turkish consulate, not a mosque. When asked what he meant by “terrorist,” Coskun responded by distinguishing between Muslims and Islamists, writing that “terrorists are people who just follow rules of the Koran book to destroy anyone who do not believe in their own, their way.” The judge wrote that Coskun “believes the Koran contains passages used by terrorists to justify jihad,” although it isn’t obvious why Coskun merely “believes” this, since it is obviously true that the Koran contains passages used by terrorists to justify jihad. The judge declared that “it is not possible to separate his views about the religion from his views about its followers.” But how can the judge reach this conclusion? From the descriptions provided in the sentencing remarks, it seems that Coskun made it pretty clear that he separates Islamic terrorists from Muslims. It seems that the judge himself is conflating Muslims with Islamists, and projecting such a view onto Coskun, writing, “He was protesting against the Government in Turkey,” and, “He has a hatred of Muslims.”

 

However, the most important issue isn’t the judge’s assumption that Coskun deeply hates an entire religious demographic, thereby dubiously constructing a “motivation” other than opposition to terrorism and the Turkish government. Instead, the real source of aggravation in the decision is that the judge is punishing Coskun for mean statements, while the people who actually issued threats or committed assault are left largely uncriticized.

 

According to the sentencing remarks, Coskun had previously burned a Koran, filmed the action, and uploaded the video to social media; in response, someone threatened to kill him and accompanied the message with a beheading video. The judge writes that “[Coskun] had posted his own burning of the Koran on social media and received negative comments including threats on his own life. He accompanied the burning of the Koran with abusive language. It would have been easy for him to make his criticism of Islam in neutral language without the abuse.” It is shocking that Coskun’s rhetoric is characterized as “abusive language,” whereas death threats are subsumed into the category of “negative comments.” Yes, Judge McGarva is right that “it would have been easy” for Coskun to use more “neutral language,” but the principles of free expression do not demand that you do so. In fact, they protect using needlessly harsh language. Funnily enough, there is no way to threaten someone’s life in “neutral language.” But there’s another double standard lurking in this paragraph from McGarva: It would also be easy for Islamists to not issue death threats in response to a video of a burned book.

 

It gets worse. When Coskun held the flaming Koran while yelling things like “Islam is the religion of terrorists” outside the Turkish consulate, he was attacked by two separate offended individuals — a violent response that did little to refute Coskun’s claims. A delivery man passing by on a bike kicked Coskun. A second man, Moussa Kadri, emerged out of a nearby property, called Coskun an “f***ing idiot,” and — in the words of Judge McGarva — “said he was going to kill” Coskun. That man went inside, then returned with a knife and physically attacked Coskun. (Kadri has since been charged with assault and possession of a bladed article.)

 

The judge wrote, “The consequences of the defendant’s provocative behaviour were that serious public disorder did break out.” Circularity underlies the decision’s reasoning; Coskun said and did things, then public disorder broke out, therefore Coskun’s behavior incited the disorder, and he is entirely to blame. Yet the judge further stated, “Neither of [the two attackers] appear to have any justification for the nature of their response.” And so, somehow, Coskun’s behavior provoked a certain response but also that response was totally unwarranted. McGarva has essentially established the standard that, if you are assaulted, you must have been doing something that encouraged the assault, even if the assault is unjustified. I await the application of this standard in a rape trial.

 

But thankfully, Judge McGarva is surprisingly honest: “The effect of criminalising his behaviour is not to punish him for their criminal acts and would not be an encouragement to others to respond in a similar way, the aim is to prevent it happening in the first place.” By its own admission, the court’s punishment of Coskun is a speech-chilling decision to prevent others from doing the same. Of course, there are alternative means to prevent similar violence in the future. Rather than punish a man who criticized Islam, the U.K. government could stop welcoming Islamists, but maybe that requires a bit too much effort.

 

In a free society, you can harbor negative feelings against a particular group, whether that group is defined by an immutable trait, a religious identity, or something else entirely including criminal conduct. In a country with free speech, you are also allowed to say mean things about these groups, and the right to challenge such statements is similarly protected. With Judge McGarva’s decision, mean comments about Islamic terrorists are evidently more worthy of condemnation than death threats issued by Islamists.