The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lost a case at the UK High Court today to reinstate the conviction of Hamit Coskun, a 51-year-old asylum seeker who burnt a copy of the Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate last year.
In what free speech activists are describing as a “humiliating” defeat for the CPS, the 51-year-old atheist Islamophobe from Turkey has successfully appealed and kept his acquittal from the act last year.
Coskun had originally been convicted in June 2025 at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court and fined £240 for disorderly behaviour aggravated by hostility towards Muslim and succeeded in appealing his conviction in October 2025.
This came after Coskun held a burning Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate, whilst shouting Islamophobic statements, such as “f*** Islam” and “Islam is a religion of terrorism.”
CPS basis for reinstating charge
The CPS brought an appeal against the decision from October 2025 to acquit Coskun and had asked for it to be reconsidered.
The appeal was dismissed in a decision on Friday by Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Obi, who said: “We are not persuaded that the court left any material factor out of account or relied on any immaterial factor.”
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The CPS pointed towards the provocative nature of burning a holy book, the central London location near a foreign consulate, and Coskun’s uttering of slogans linking Islam to terrorism as conduct plainly likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.
The CPS also claimed that the violent reaction by members of the public — including a knife attack — demonstrated the severity and impact that such a protest could have, even if such reactions were unlawful.
The Free Speech Union described the decision as a “humiliating defeat” for the CPS, and called on the Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, to resign.
Who is Hamit Coskun?
Coskun, who was present at the hearing in London today, has been staying in accommodation provided by the Home Office since his protest due to alleged threats being made to him.
Coskun is an atheist originally from Turkey, of half-Armenian and half-Kurdish heritage. His Islamophobic act took place in Rutland Gardens, Knightsbridge on February 13 2025.
During the act, Coskun was confronted by a Muslim man, Moussa Kadri, who slashed him with a knife. Kadri was given a suspended prison sentence for his act.
Free speech and Islamphobes celebrate
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society, said that the request from the CPS was rightfully rejected by the High Court as they believed the CPS was trying to “introduce a blasphemy law by the back door.”
“However offensive some may have found the Quran-burning protest, it was lawful.
“Criminal law protects people from harm, not being offended. There must now be a serious review of how and why the CPS originally came to charge a man with causing harassment, alarm and distress to the religion of Islam, and why it chose to pursue this case to the High Court,” Evans said.
Lord Young of Acton, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, also commented on the decision: “This appeal should never have been brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, just as Hamit should never have been prosecuted.”
“We have not had blasphemy laws in this country for 18 years and, for that reason, this prosecution was bound to fail.”
“Yet the CPS has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to bring one back via the back door — and one that just enforces Muslim blasphemy codes, not Christian ones.”
A CPS spokesperson also made a statement, saying: “There is no law to prosecute people for ‘blasphemy’, and burning a religious text on its own is not a criminal act — our case was always that Hamit Coskun’s words, choice of location and burning of the Quran amounted to disorderly behaviour, and that at the time he demonstrated hostility towards a religious group.”
