This is a dangerous moment for free speech
Yet this week the clock seemed to have been turned back to around ad 650. Hamit Coskun was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence motivated 'by hostility towards… followers of Islam'. His crime? Setting fire to a Quran, shouting 'fuck Islam' and declaring the faith a 'religion of terrorism' outside the Turkish consulate. The Crown argued Coskun's demonstration could not have been peaceful, since it provoked a Muslim man to attack him. The alternative explanation – that Coskun had, in a rather regrettable way, proved his main point, eluded the professionals of Lord Hermer's Crown Prosecution Service.
Coskun was originally charged with the exciting new crime of harassing the 'religious institution of Islam' – treating a faith with 1.9 billion followers like someone with hurt feelings. Although that charge was not pursued, the eventual ruling's impact is effectively the same. Henceforth, anyone criticising a religion is at the mercy of the tender sensibilities of any bystanders.
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