Blasphemy Laws Are Returning To Europe

Instead of punishing the criminals, governments are censoring the ones who attack Islam. It's insanity that will come back to bite them in the arse.

From The European Conservative

By Lauren Smith

When our governments reward violence or the threat of violence with censorship, it sets a dangerous precedent.

In February this year, a man was viciously attacked outside the Turkish Consulate in London for burning a copy of the Quran. Fifty-year-old Hamit Coskun was assaulted by a random passerby, who appeared to slash at Coskun with a knife. When Coskun fell to the ground, the man reportedly kicked him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him. Incredibly, a second man—who looked to be a food delivery rider on a bicycle—also stopped to give Coskun a kick while he was on the ground.  

The first trial relating to this case came to a close this week. Only it was not Coskun’s attackers who are being convicted for any crime right now—their time in court is still to come. Rather, it was Coskun himself who was guilty of a “religiously motivated public order offence.” 

On Monday, district judge John McGarva convicted Coskun under the ACT at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The judge determined that Coskun’s actions were “highly provocative” and motivated, at least in part, by a supposed “deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers.” Coskun was fined £240, with an additional statutory surcharge of £96. 

Naturally, Coskun—a Turkish-born atheist who sought refuge in the UK claiming persecution by the Turkish government— argued that his burning of the Quran was a matter of free speech. It was a provocative stunt aimed at criticising Islam and, specifically, what he called the “Islamist government” of Turkey. But all that was irrelevant to McGarva. According to him, Coskun’s dislike for Islam was indistinguishable from a hatred of all Muslims. 

Incredibly, even the fact that Coskun was attacked twice for his protest did not soften McGarva’s judgement. It apparently only strengthened the case against him. “That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people.” In other words, Coskun was asking for it. 

The last successful prosecution under blasphemy laws in Britain was in 1977. Over 30 years later, in 2008, they were officially abolished. Coskun’s conviction now marks their de facto return. While the justice system may dress it up in the language of preventing ‘public disorder,’ the real message is clear: criticising Islam can now be a crime. 

This isn’t even the only recent example of Islam critics being punished by the British state. Just days before Coskun staged his protest outside the Turkish consulate, another man was arrested for allegedly burning a Quran in Manchester and livestreaming the act online. The arrest was made on suspicion of a “racially aggravated public-order offence,” a claim made even more bizarre by the fact that Islam is not a race. Greater Manchester Police’s assistant chief constable, Stephanie Parker, argued that although people have a right “for freedom of expression,” the burning had to be stopped due to “the deep concern this will cause within some of our diverse communities.” 

It is insane that this is happening in Britain mere months after a man was assassinated in Sweden for doing exactly what Coskun did. Earlier this year, Salwan Momika — a 38-year-old Iraqi refugee — was shot and killed in his apartment while he was livestreaming on TikTok. The reason for Momika’s execution was surely because he was a harsh and vocal critic of Islam. In 2023, he burnt a copy of the Islamic holy book outside Stockholm Central Mosque. His protest resulted in violent protests in both Sweden and across the Muslim world. As a result, Momika had been charged last August with “agitation against an ethnic group” and the Swedish government was reportedly looking at ways to outlaw demonstrations that involved burning religious texts. 

In Denmark, it is already illegal to burn Qurans and other books considered holy by religious groups. In 2023, the government passed a law banning the “inappropriate treatment” of religious texts, with a punishment of either fines or up to two years in prison. This was deemed necessary following a string of high-profile Quran burnings. The protests—many of which were staged by right-wing Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan—triggered counter-demonstrations and riots at home and abroad, including attempted stormings of the Danish and Swedish embassies in Iraq. Multiple Muslim-majority nations — including Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia — condemned the anti-Islam protests and threatened diplomatic consequences if they continued. As such, the Danish government bowed to pressure.

Across Europe, similar blasphemy laws are making a return. Last year, Paludan was charged with “agitation against an ethnic group” in Sweden over his public Quran burnings in 2022. In 2023, an anti-Islam activist was investigated on suspicion of insulting Muslims, because he tore pages from the Quran and called it a “fascist book” outside the Dutch parliament building. In perhaps the most shocking case of all, shortly after Momika’s death, his co-defendant—Salwan Najem, another Iraqi-born activist—was handed a fine and a suspended sentence for incitement over Quran-burning protests that he and Momika had engaged in in 2023. 

Like in the case of Salwan Momika, when the authorities don’t punish Islam’s critics, Islamist vigilantes take it into their own hands. Let’s not forget French school teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded after being accused of showing pictures of the Prophet Mohammad during one of his classes. Similarly, last year, German authorities managed to stop a planned Islamist terror attack in Sweden that was intended to take revenge for Quran burnings across Europe.

How did we end up here? That in the heart of the Western world, people are being arrested, convicted, and even murdered for condemning another religion is simply barbaric. These are the kinds of scenes we might expect to see in theocratic regimes, not in supposedly civilised liberal democracies. Yet time and again, the states that nominally value free speech, tolerance, and secular values are caught bending the knee to Islamist intimidation. It is cowardice through and through. 

When our governments reward violence or the threat of violence with censorship, it sets a dangerous precedent. It lets groups know that if they behave with enough aggression and inspire enough fear, they can bully their way into making their beliefs untouchable. It hands the loudest and most threatening voices a veto over public discourse. 

The moment it becomes a crime to criticise, insult, or mock another belief—no matter how crudely or provocatively—we are in serious danger of losing our freedoms. Blasphemy laws cannot be allowed to return to Europe. Once the right to offend is lost, it will not be easily won back.