Starmer dragged into Koran-burning court case

Telegraph

28-05-2025

Hamit Coskun is quite possibly Britain's most endangered man. Certainly he appears to have a death wish. In February, he took a coach to London, walked up to the Turkish consulate, pulled from his bag a Koran, and set fire to it with a lighter.
A video of the incident went viral after Mr Coskun, aged 50, was violently attacked for what he insisted was a meaningful protest and what many other people would view as an anti-Islamic stunt.
In the aftermath of the Koran burning, he says two Iraqi men broke into his home in Derby and threatened him with a knife and an ashtray. Police took him from his home and moved him to a safe house elsewhere in the Midlands, a nondescript terrace that I won't describe further for obvious reasons.
On Wednesday, he goes on trial at Westminster magistrates' court charged with disorderly behaviour likely to cause 'harassment, alarm or distress' for setting the Koran alight. As he did so, according to the charges, Mr Coskun swore, and then shouted 'Islam is religion of terrorism' in his broken English. He is accused under the Public Order Act of being motivated 'by hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam'.
Mr Coskun remains unrepentant. He will plead not guilty and intends to go on a tour of the UK burning Korans in other cities, whether he wins or loses his case.
He himself has become a cause célèbre. The Free Speech Union has taken up his case and paid for a security team as well as half his legal fees – the National Secular Society is paying for the other half. Meanwhile, an American woman who read about his arrest online plans to fly to the UK and join Mr Coskun in future Koran-burning protests.
Mr Coskun's lawyers will argue that he has a human right to peaceful protest, under Article 10 of the Convention on Human Rights, to burn a Koran if he wants to.
They have found an unlikely ally: Sir Keir Starmer.
Almost a quarter of a century ago, Sir Keir, in his day job as a human rights barrister, successfully argued that a peace activist had the legal right to deface the Stars and Stripes flag in a protest outside a US airbase in Norfolk. In 2001, Sir Keir told the High Court: 'Flag denigration is a form of protest activity renowned the world over.'
He added that the court should protect the right of his client – a 59-year-old peacenik – to stage a 'peaceful protest in a free and democratic society'.
The High Court agreed with Sir Keir and quashed his client's conviction for disorderly behaviour 'likely to cause harassment, alarm and distress' – the same part of the Public Order Act under which Mr Coskun is charged.
His client, Lindis Percy, would later suggest that Sir Keir had told her he had worn underpants emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes so he could show his unwavering support for her whenever he sat down wearing them.
Sitting in his safe house, Mr Coskun, a father-of-three, in some ways makes for an unlikely heroic figure. He is diminutive – just 5ft 5in tall – and courageous to the point of madness. He speaks no English, talking through an interpreter via Zoom. It takes him 10 minutes to answer the question: 'How old are you?' because of a mix up over his papers at birth. He says he is officially 50 although he looks older.
Mr Coskun came to the UK from Turkey two and half years ago to flee persecution. He is seeking asylum and his case is under review. He is half Armenian and half Kurdish and a committed atheist, who spent close to a decade in jail for membership of a Kurdish political party that Turkish authorities said – and which Mr Coskun denies – was a terrorist front. He was a political activist who was 'abused and tortured' in detention; on one occasion a gun was put to his neck.
He had become alarmed at what he sees as the Islamification of Turkey, constitutionally a modern secular state but where, he says, recent times have seen Islamism gain a hold, stoked by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its authoritarian president, to maintain his grip on power.
It explains his decision to make the trip down to London on Feb 13. The week before, he had posted on social media his concern that the Koran was catapulting Turkey to sharia law. 'I have been studying the Koran for 25 years now,' he says, convinced it encourages terrorism.
'So on February 13 I went to London, I took the bus. At 2pm in front of the Turkish consulate. That's because Turkey has been made a base for extremism and that is why I burned the Koran,' Mr Coskun says.
He packed the Koran, two lighters (so he had a spare) and then set it alight outside the consulate.
All hell broke loose.
'I'm going to f---ing kill you now'
A video posted on social media shows him shouting while holding the holy book by now in flames. A man comes out of a neighbouring building and asks him why he is doing it. 'Terrorist,' replies Mr Coskun. The man responds: 'You're a f---ing idot', adding: 'I'm going to f---ing kill you now.'
He then disappears back inside, comes out and begins attacking Mr Coskun who is punched and pushed to the ground and then kicked – all while still clutching the Koran which continues to burn. A delivery cyclist also appears to run over Mr Coskun's hand as he lies on the ground. His attacker would subsequently plead guilty to assault.
'I don't speak English but I could tell the guy was threatening me. After a minute he came back. I was scared. But that doesn't mean I am a coward,' Mr Coskun says now. 'Then the delivery rider stamped on my hand and threw his bicycle on me before cycling off.'
Mr Coskun was first taken to hospital for treatment. He was then arrested and held for 24 hours in the cells, before being summoned to court and released on bail back to his home in Derby.
He woke up in the night to find two men – he says they were Iraqis – in his kitchen. 'One had a knife and one had an ashtray. They pushed me against the wall and they had the video of the Koran burning incident on their phone and they told me: 'If you keep doing this you will die'.' They called him an unbeliever and an infidel.
Mr Coskun wisely got out of town – he says the incident in his Derby flat was 'far scarier' than the assault on him in London – and removed to the safe house that is now home. There is nothing on the walls. It is bare, bleak and miserable, with curtains covering the windows.
But he remains steadfast in his mini-crusade. Win or lose Wednesday's trial, he says: 'Absolutely I will carry on burning Korans. I am an activist. I was really surprised I got charged because I really believe this country was a liberal democracy where freedom of expression existed and I was really shocked by the attitude towards me.
'Absolutely I plead not guilty. I never accept this to be a crime.'
Mr Coskun insists 'I don't want to upset anyone' although it's hard to see how he squares that with burning the Koran in public. Burning any holy book must inevitably cause offence but he replies: 'There is nothing wrong in questioning a religion.'
He expresses his support for Tommy Robinson, the far-Right, anti-Islam militant just released from jail for contempt of court. 'I love him,' he says.
Mr Coskun denies he is a martyr, although he describes his campaign against the Koran as 'his fight'. It is, he insists, his 'democratic right' to burn the Koran if he wants to.
He faces a fine if found guilty in the magistrates' court and when he walks free – convicted or otherwise – plans a Koran-burning tour of Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow.
'I am ready to pay the cost,' he says. 'It's OK. It's not a problem. I know what could happen to me. They are after me.'
Mr Coskun shows me a message sent to him via his social media account that says: 'I will cut your throat… Just wait, you b----d.'
The case in the magistrates' court will be keenly watched. It threatens to be a landmark, potentially setting some kind of precedent. Mr Coskun's lawyers will draw on Sir Keir's successful defence of Ms Percy in 2001.
Lord Young of Acton, the Tory peer and general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said ahead of the case: 'In 2001, Sir Keir Starmer successfully appealed the conviction of Lindis Percy for desecrating the American flag.
'He persuaded the High Court that the denigration of an object of veneration should not be a criminal offence, and the right to peaceful protest in a free and democratic society should not be overridden by bogus arguments about the need to preserve community cohesion in a multicultural society.
'If Sir Keir was still a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, the Free Speech Union might well have hired him to defend Hamit Coskun. But I fear he has changed his mind about this issue since becoming Prime Minister, particularly when the object of veneration is a copy of the Koran.'