The man who burned the Qur’an (Koran) outside the Turkish Consulate in London was found on Monday by the guilty of the district court for charging the religious impairment of public order.
The defendant, identified as 50 -year -old Hamit Coskun, shouted on February 13, “Islam is a religion of terrorism” and “Qur’an burns” when he lit a religious book, reported on the AFP press agency.
District Judge John McGarva at the London Court of Westminster Magistrates’ Court found Coskun guilty of the restless behavior “in the conduct or perspective of a person who is likely to be caused by annoyance, alarm or need”.
Coskun was motivated by “hostility to the members of the religious group, namely the followers of Islam,” Mcgarva said.
The court issued a fine of 240 GBP ($ 325) with a statutory surcharge of 96 GBP per coskun.
“Your actions in the burning of the Qur’an where you did were very provocative and your actions were accompanied by a bad language in some cases focused on religion and were motivated by at least partially hatred of religion,” said the judge according to Afpport.
Turkey -born Coskun, who is currently looking for asylum in the UK, denied the accusations and published on the social media that he was protesting against the “Islamist government” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
During the case of hearing, the prosecutors insisted that Coskun was not prosecuted for burning the book.
“According to the AFP report, he is prosecuted for his unconventional public behavior,” Philip McGhee told the prosecutor’s office.
The judge also said, “According to Reuters report, the book is not necessarily an intact book, albeit offensive, necessarily restless for some,”.
“His behavior has made the timing and location of behavior messages and that all of this was accompanied by an abusive language. It was not necessary to use the” F word “and direct it to Islam,” McGarva added.
Blasphemy
Coskun’s legal fees have been paid by Union Free Speech Union (FSU) and a national secular society that claimed it was essentially prosecuted for blasphemy, despite the British guarantees of free expression.
In response to the court judgment, the main opposition conservative party stated on X: “Britain has no blasphemous laws. However, this verdict creates one de facto.”
“Parliament never voted for that. The British don’t want it. This decision is bad,” he added.
(Tagstotranslate) koran
