Man who burnt Quran at Turkish consulate guilty of public order offence
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/man-who-burnt-quran-outside-turkish-consulate-found-guilty-7s8b50f8x
Posted by pppppppppppppppppd
Man who burnt Quran at Turkish consulate guilty of public order offence
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/man-who-burnt-quran-outside-turkish-consulate-found-guilty-7s8b50f8x
Posted by pppppppppppppppppd
23 Comments
Oh joy. Blasphemy is just the kind of punishment we need in this country.
One for the defenders of this verdict, if he had done this with a Bible and shouted “f**k Christianity”, would you be in favour of this going to court and him being convicted? Past evidence and experience from what I’ve seen of the British state and how people approach the subject would suggest you wouldn’t.
Well, that’s a sad and depressing day for the British legal system and our culture as a whole.
Hopefully the government will come out hard against this and call out the CPS and our judiciary for allowing this abomination of criminal justice to happen.
Worth pointing out here that the issue was *where* he did it more than what he did.
Killing a pig is legal, but if you deliberately go to the RSPCA and butcher a pig outside then it could be seen as a public order offense – you’re deliberately doing it in order to upset people and provoke a reaction.
If you’re deliberately trying to upset people in order to provoke a reaction, and actually go out of your way to make them feel uncomfortable, *at the very least* you’re an absolute dickhead, and I’d far rather a society in which the rule wasn’t “you can do anything you want to make people feel terrible as long as it’s not actually hitting them you’re good”.
This isn’t a blasphemy offense, this is a public order offense – the man in question was deliberately and knowingly doing whatever he could think of to try and provoke others into violence. And while that’s not *as* bad, actively trying to goad others into violence by any means necessary means he’s not innocent.
If he was out of coal for his BBQ and put a copy of the Quaran on it – also burning a Quaran – he’d be fine.
So no, blasphemy laws aren’t back – this guy was actively trying to breach the peace and cause public order incidents, bordering on trying to incite others to violence – and *that’s* what he’s been charged with.
Public order offences include: “**Disorderly Behavior/Racially or Religiously Aggravated Disorderly Behavior**”. This fits it. The act is from 1986. There is very reasonable debate around the act itself, but to say this is some kind of new thing about “reintroducing blasphemy” is ignorant.
So no matter how irrational your reaction is to something, if someone does it knowing they’ll likely get a reaction then it’s a public order offence.
People get irrationally angry at a lot of things.
Unpopular opinion: this isn’t a “blasphemy law” by the back door and free speech doesn’t protect public order offences…
Obviously there will be a lot of hyperbole about this, but this isnt anything to do with blasphemy. I’m not sure why that has been the pervasive opinion on this case.
Even the comments on this thread are essentially to do with that and that is perplexing.
Should we all be burning books outside? Should we all be burning stuff in the street? Is that what people want?
Should I go outside Buckingham palace and burn the Union flag or the St Georges’ cross and expect nothing? Maybe I’ll ask my partner to do it for me instead since she is on Indian heritage.
You are still free to burn whatever you want, but if you’re doing it for attention outside and then cry foul when you get the attention you are craving then it makes you a dumb arse.
A lot of people in this comment section are fundamentally misunderstanding what blasphemy laws were, and what UK public order and hate crime laws actually do.
Blasphemy laws (now abolished in England and Wales) made it a crime to Insult or show contempt for sacred religious beliefs, texts, or figures (especially Christian ones) even if no individual was harmed or disturbed. They protected religions themselves, not people.
Today’s laws, like the Public Order Act 1986 and Crime and Disorder Act 1998, focus on protecting individuals, not beliefs and punishing acts that are abusive or threatening, and then only when they are likely to cause real-world harm (like harassment, alarm, or fear)
He is being convicted of the later, not the former.
I’m sure the lives of the whole of r/unitedkingdom is majorly affected by this.
>The court determined that Coskun’s actions of burning the Quran while shouting inflammatory statements such as “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” went beyond protected free speech
It’s comical they even use the term “free speech” still, it’s not, it’s government controlled restricted speech, and being mean to a certain religion is now in the “not allowed” list.
We used to mock Russia, North Korea, China etc for having restricted speech and the government controlling what they can and can’t say, but the UK is just the same now, just nuances on what you’re allowed to say between them.
I don’t really think anyone should be burning anything in public.
No mention of the guy who stabbed him, or the delivery guy who got a few kicks in, too?
The man’s been fined for setting things on fire in public and harassing people who are just doing their job. Whats the problem? People live in such hyperbole these days.
Legitimate act of protest against a sad march of his country towards theocracy
Why burn it in front of the Turkish consulate? The aim was provocation.
I’d be interested in what these comments would look like if a group of a pro-Palestine protesters burned a Hebrew bible outside the Israeli embassy.
Good.
He is very much allowed to burn a Quran at his home. Totsl freedom there.
What he did there was incitement.
He purposely goaded others who hold it sacred.
Intent matters. I don’t understand how anyone is surprised by this.
Absolute lunacy how many people seem desperate to be allowed to burn religious texts lmao. Grow up.
*[Burn Quran]*
*[Mentalist attacks you with a knife]*
*[Random passing deliveroo rider decides you need a kicking too]*
British courts: You are the guilty one for daring to insult Islam..
Is the freedom of speech the same as freedom to insult? Should I be allowed to do and say anything I want or should there be boundaries? Who makes the boundaries and should do I have to abide with them even if I disagree with them?
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