3 days ago
Free speech must not be sacrificed to appease Islamists
Sir Keir Starmer once marched into the High Court to defend a woman who trampled and daubed slogans on the American flag, thundering that even the most insulting acts of desecration are protected by free today, faced with a man fined for burning a Koran, he melts into apparent silence. His own MPs are calling for him to specifically outlaw any 'desecration' of holy books and he ominously failed to rule it out. So it's free speech for flag-burners, but criminal records for Koran-burners? The double standard could not be starker: this is two-tier justice, made to measure for Two-Tier Keir's Britain.
Hamit Coskun's fate is grotesque. He was allegedly stabbed in broad daylight by an enraged zealot for burning a religious book and hauled before a judge while his alleged assailant will not face trial until 2027. The Kurdish-Armenian atheist, protesting President Erdogan, was knifed, kicked, and spat on outside Turkey's London consulate, yet it is only he who now carries a criminal could have been even worse. My campaign alongside the Free Speech Union forced the CPS to dump its farcical charge that Coskun had harassed 'the religious institution of Islam'. Even so, their revised charge still criminalises the robust denunciation of ideas. This is the rebirth of a blasphemy law, smuggled in through the back door. Seventeen years after Parliament abolished blasphemy against Christianity, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts have brought it back for charge against Coskun, Section 5 of the Public Order Act, was meant to tackle threatening or abusive behaviour directed at real people present in real time. In 2013, Parliament tightened the law so that ordinary insult would no longer suffice. The CPS has now expanded that provision into a blasphemy clause. If book-burning during a political protest is re-defined as 'disorder', then any vigorous criticism of Islam – or indeed any religion – is at risk. The judgment sets a chilling precedent: the more 'offended' a crowd claims to be, the more likely the state might be to punish the note the breathtaking asymmetry. Had Coskun torched a Bible outside Apostolic Nunciature (the Vatican's Embassy) while shouting abuse about Christianity, does anyone seriously believe the CPS would have rushed to press charges? Would the police even have turned up? Their own hate-crime guidance celebrates satire, mockery and irreverence – unless, it seems, the target is Islam. Parliament did not legislate for such religious privilege; officials have conjured it out of thin air. Meanwhile, the real violence has gone largely unremarked. The man alleged to have stabbed Coskun – caught on camera slashing and spitting, and then booted repeatedly by a masked Deliveroo driver who hopped off his bike to 'help' the attacker before cycling away, still unidentified and uncharged – cannot even be named, and his case will not reach court for another two years. Until then, he's out on bail, walking our streets.
His appeal against the conviction must, as Kemi Badenoch has said, be successful. To see where this is heading, look no further than Batley Primary School teacher still in hiding – his life shattered – for sharing a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed. Parliament must strike back so that the authorities and our courts have no doubt of Parliament's protection of free speech. My colleague, Nick Timothy, has produced a Bill that will bar prosecutors and judges from reviving blasphemy in any guise. I will support it unequivocally, and I challenge the Government benches to support it. Ministers who claim to cherish free speech must prove it. Let the Bill progress, or admit they are willing to trade our liberties for the transient comfort of avoiding offence.
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