Britain’s long march to authoritarianism is speeding up.
Britain’s long march to authoritarianism is speeding up.
In February, an English magistrates’ court (the bottom tier of the English judicial system) found Hamit Coskun, a Turkish-born refugee, guilty of a “religiously aggravated public order offence” for having shouted “Islam is a religion of terrorism” outside the Turkish consulate in London while holding aloft a (burning) copy of the Koran (that belonged to him).
As Coskun explained later:
Some may say that book-burning is a poor substitute for reasoned debate. I would counter that it was a symbolic, non-violent form of expression intended to draw attention to the ongoing move from the secularism of my country of birth to a regime which embraces hardline Islam.
He was then attacked by a Muslim man, Moussa Kadri, who slashed at him with a knife. The political climate in Britain is such that the assailant felt that he was within his rights to attack someone for being rude about his religion. (Kadri was later prosecuted and received a suspended sentence.)
Blasphemy is not a criminal offense in England.
Coskun appealed, and a judge threw out the conviction.
The Daily Telegraph:
“There is no offence of blasphemy in our law,” Mr Justice Bennathan said. “The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.”
He said Mr Coskun had acted alone and had not aimed his “political speech or conduct” at a person.
The judge added: “We live in a liberal democracy. One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so.
“The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.”
Quite.
So, a happy, if belated, ending to an unnecessary ordeal?
No.
Free speech has been steadily eroded for years in Britain under both the Tories and Labour — in part because of multiculturalist piety — and a significant part of the criminal-justice system is run by apparatchiks with a leftish, authoritarian tilt. There is quite a bit to complaints of “two-tiered” justice, and those complaints have only become noisier since the election of a Labour government.
The Labour Party had long taken the support of most Muslim voters for granted, but it has been taken aback to discover that some of them were leaving the fold. Four “pro-Gaza” independents were elected in the 2024 elections, and Labour’s leadership is acutely aware that a bloc of Greens, Muslim voters, and harder-line leftists is forming to its left, an echo perhaps of the much-debated rise of islamo-gauchisme (Islamo-leftism) in France. The government is running at a humiliating 18 percent in the polls, and although there are nearly four years to go until the next election, Labour will be keen to prop up its support among Muslim voters.
It is only a coincidence that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), an independent body, of course, has now appealed Coskun’s appeal. It has denied that it is trying to reintroduce a blasphemy law by the back door.
The BBC:
In a statement, the CPS said there was “no law to prosecute people for ‘blasphemy'”, but added: “Our case remains that Hamit Coskun’s words, choice of location and burning of the (Quran) amounted to disorderly behaviour. . . . We have appealed the decision, and the judge has agreed to state a case for the High Court to consider.”
Coskun was convicted by a magistrates’ court, where there is no jury, although in certain cases a defendant can elect for a jury trial before the Crown Court.
Meanwhile, as Charlie Cooke has pointed out, Justice Secretary David Lammy has called for the abolition of jury trial in all but the most serious cases or in cases of “public interest.” This was not something mentioned in Labour’s election manifesto. The reason for suggesting this is, allegedly, efficiency. (There is a large backlog of cases to be heard, which the CPS has, presumably, increased by one by appealing against Coskun’s appeal.)
It is, of course, only a coincidence that juries could get in the way of two-tiered justice, or, for that matter, might think that somebody was entitled to make a protest by burning a copy of a book that he or she owned.
Five years ago, Lammy tweeted that “jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.”
He was right. Then.