UK Prosecutor Backtracks After Attempting to Charge Qur’an Burner With Blasphemy Law That Doesn’t Exist

Breitbart ^ | 10 May 2025 | Oliver JJ Lane

[Olog-hai]

The United Kingdom does not have a blasphemy law, but that didn’t stop the Criminal Prosecution Service trying their best, leading to something of a volte-face (about-face) after backlash.

50-year-old Hamit Coskun was charged with acting with intent to cause “harassment, alarm or distress” against the “religious institution of Islam” by the UK’s Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) this week after allegedly burning a copy of the Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate in London. Yet after a short campaign by free speech activists, including the Free Speech Union, which is supporting Coksun, and Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick, the charge has now been rewritten after it was pointed out that the allegation is tantamount to a blasphemy prosecution.

The United Kingdom abolished blasphemy as an offense in 2008. Coksun’s lawyers called the charge “plainly defective”, given that the Public Order Act defines harassment as being against a person, which the “religious institution of Islam” is not. […]

Several European nations which abolished blasphemy laws in the past century now appear to be drifting towards bringing the offense back under pressure from religious leaders who wish to see texts protected from speech and deed. In the United Kingdom, Member of Parliament Tahir Ali spoke in the House in favor of a ban on “desecrations” of text and prophets and in Denmark the blasphemy law is already being brought back. …

---

TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: defundnato; fascistbritain; koran; korantoiletpaper; muslimbritain; pedophileprophet; rop; uk; unitedknazis; waronterror

[Billthedrill]

They can still get him for burning trash without a permit.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

The liberals in the UK are intent on caring for the hurt feelings of Muslims. Muslims caring about hurt feelings of non-Muslims? Not so much.

[ClearCase_guy]

Not all the way there quite yet, but you can it coming — There Is No Law, There Is Only Power.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

I’m sure that Two-tier Keir will bring in a new ‘blasphemy’ law. Criticism of the gubmint shall constitute blasphemy in Starmer’s brave new world!

[dfwgator]

‘Here I stand with my bayonets, there you stand with your law! We’ll see which counts for more!’ - Adolf Hitler

[BradyLS]

Surprised they just didn’t hand him over to a Sharia “court.”

[I want the USA back]

“Doesn’t exist”. Give it time. In less than a decade the UK will be practicing and enforcing sharia law.

[fuzzylogic]

There’s a new generation of police that seem to believe causing ‘offense’ is somehow a ‘hate crime’. They seem to have zero understanding of rights, even those that do exist in the UK. The rest of the population doesn’t understand them either, so things just get more and more Monty Python.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

The Roman prescription for blasphemy was "Let the Gods avenge themselves!"

If the alleged god Allah is offended and is a "god" then he should act instead of of sending his troops of inbred bearded screaming monkeys.

[Angelino97]

The liberals in the UK are intent on caring for the hurt feelings of Muslims.

Not only for Muslims' feeling.

Alison Chabloz jailed for anti-Semitic radio show comments.

[Degaston]

This UK prosecutor sounds more absurd than this clip about Blasphemy from the fictional movie “Life of Brian”. https://youtu.be/wciENFKUelY?si=08eoQaVoRKALR7Xa

[Leaning Right]

> The United Kingdom abolished blasphemy as an offense in 2008. <

Just you wait. That law will be back. But it will only apply to “blasphemy” against Islam. Any other religion will be fair target.

And the word “blasphemy” won’t be used. It will be categorized as a public order offense, or something like that.

Bye, Britain.

[Thommas]

Several European nations ... appear to be drifting towards bringing [blasphemy laws] back under pressure from religious leaders Islamist Imams.

Why is it so hard for journalists to just relate the truth? Well, sadly, the reason is pretty evident..

[FrankRizzo890]

They’ll charge this guy with something stupid, and then quietly pass the law that didn’t exist so that they can charge the NEXT one with it.

The truth of the matter is that it was probably being talked about behind closed doors, and this prosecutor jumped the gun and tried to charge someone with it before it was on the books.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Reminds me of JUDGES 6 when Gideon destroyed the altar to Baal and the people wanted to kill him.

31But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Are you contending for Baal? Are you trying to save him? Whoever pleads his case will be put to death by morning! If Baal is a god, let him contend for himself with the one who has torn down his altar.”

If the Koran was his personal property he could do with it what he wished, even as toilet paper.