A Derby-based man has been found guilty of committing a religiously aggravated public order offence after burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London earlier this year. Hamit Coskun, 50, was convicted at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday following an incident on 13 February in Rutland Gardens, Knightsbridge. During the event, Coskun held a burning Quran aloft while shouting offensive remarks about Islam.

He was fined £240, along with a £96 statutory surcharge, after the court found his behaviour amounted to disorderly conduct aggravated by religious hostility. District Judge John McGarva described Coskun’s actions as "provocative and taunting," stating that he exhibited "a deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers." The judge also remarked that Coskun's hostility stemmed from personal and familial experiences in Turkey, where he was born. Coskun is of Kurdish and Armenian heritage.

“You cannot separate your views about Islam from your views about its followers,” Judge McGarva told the defendant. “Burning the Quran in that location was clearly designed to provoke, and your accompanying language made that clear. This was not a protest about policy—it was driven, at least in part, by animosity towards Muslims.”

During the proceedings, the court heard that Coskun had travelled from Derby to London specifically for the protest, which took place around 2:00 pm GMT. He later defended his actions as political protest against what he referred to as the "Islamist government" of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Coskun had posted online prior to the incident, accusing Erdogan of turning Turkey into a haven for radical Islamists and attempting to impose Sharia law. Following the verdict, he claimed the ruling represented “an attack on free speech” and warned it would discourage others from expressing dissent.

The case has drawn reactions from several civil liberty organisations. A spokesperson for Humanists UK said the verdict raised concerns about the threshold for prosecution, warning that it could set a precedent for curbing legitimate expression. “When the blasphemy laws were repealed in 2008, it marked a turning point for freedom of speech,” they said. “We must ensure that public order laws are not being used to stifle debate—even when that debate is uncomfortable or controversial.”

Judge McGarva, however, rejected claims that the case amounted to a reintroduction of blasphemy law by another name. He clarified that burning a religious text, though offensive to some, does not in itself constitute disorderly behaviour. In Coskun’s case, however, the context and inflammatory remarks tipped the action into criminal territory. Coskun’s legal defence is being supported by the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union (FSU), both of which have vowed to appeal the ruling. “If necessary, we will take this all the way to the European Court of Human Rights,” said a spokesperson for the FSU. “Religious tolerance is a cornerstone of British values, but it does not obligate non-believers to abide by the blasphemy standards of any religion.”