A test case for free speech, and a warning to Christians
It should astonish the citizens of a free country that a man who was stabbed in broad daylight for protesting the policies of a foreign state is the one who ended up convicted. Yet that is precisely what happened to Hamzeh Koskan, an atheist of Kurdish-Armenian descent who, in an act of political protest, burned a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London¹. His assailant, reportedly a fanatical Islamist, will not face trial until 2027². Koskan, meanwhile, was fined by a British court for committing a racially and religiously aggravated public order offence³.
Let that sink in: he was stabbed by an ideological zealot, and he was found guilty. Why? Because his attacker — and bystanders presumed to be Muslim — were offended by his protest.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and magistrate justified the conviction by arguing that because Koskan was violently attacked, his actions had caused distress and disorder among the public — namely among Muslims who considered his actions blasphemous⁴. But this logic inverts justice. It effectively empowers the most aggressive and intolerant to dictate the boundaries of lawful expression. The implication is chilling: if your words provoke violence from others, you are to blame — not the one who strikes you.
Koskan’s case was only the most high-profile instance in a growing pattern. The arrest of Craig Houston, Scottish leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), under the Communications Act 2003 for an alleged speech offence⁵, appears to be part of the same trajectory — one that merges blasphemy law with identity politics and empowers the state to arbitrate truth, belief, and insult.
Christians must pay close attention. For we are told that “hate speech” is a neutral tool to protect harmony, that racial and religious aggravation laws are evenly applied. But where were the prosecutions when Christian symbols were desecrated, Bibles defaced, or church services disrupted by activists? When a man attempted to burn the Union Flag — itself bearing the crosses of three Christian saints — he was not convicted⁶. When a public statue was toppled and thrown into the Bristol harbour, jurors waved it away⁷. But set a match to a book associated with Islam and the weight of the state descends.
The public prosecutor in Koskan’s case went so far as to ask him, under oath, why he burned the whole Quran rather than just “selected passages”⁸ — a question as absurd as it is Orwellian. They even asked why he said “F Islam” during the protest — as if expressing disdain for a belief system now qualifies as a criminal offence. A belief system, it bears repeating, that was being protested precisely because of its association with a foreign state’s domestic repression and political violence.
This is not merely uneven application of the law. This is, as SDP leader William Clouston remarked, a **“two-tier system”**⁹. Christians, white Britons, and critics of the contemporary zeitgeist may be mocked, lampooned, vilified — often by public institutions themselves — while minority religious sensitivities are treated as sacrosanct. Indeed, attacking Christianity is not just permitted, it is often funded in the form of “art” installations and public subsidies¹⁰.
What we are witnessing is the reimposition of blasphemy law by stealth — not to protect the Christian foundations of Britain, but to defend the perceived honour of religious minorities and their allies in the secular elite. The Public Order Act 1986, Communications Act 2003, and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 have become instruments not of justice but of fear, wielded by the Crown Prosecution Service and police as tools of ideological enforcement. The underlying principle is not public order but emotional fragility — or more precisely, the fragility of those whose grievance is politically useful.
As one panellist on the New Culture Forum rightly noted, the expansion of statutory “hate crimes” has replaced the old common-law principle of breach of the King’s peace¹¹. Where once only incitement to imminent violence was punishable, now mere words or actions — even in response to violence — are prosecuted if they offend a designated group.
This creates a perverse incentive. It teaches radical actors that if they react violently, the state will come down harder on their opponents than on them. It rewards fragility and punishes courage. And it renders Christians, conservatives, and nationalists second-class citizens in their own land.
The only remedy is to repeal these ideological laws in their entirety. Britain must rediscover the principles of liberty rooted in its own legal tradition: the presumption of innocence, equal treatment before the law, and the right to speak unpopular truths without fear of prosecution or mob violence.
It is not too late — but the window is closing. The conviction of Hamzeh Koskan may be a test case. But if Christians remain silent now, it will not be the last.
Footnotes
¹ Daily Mail, Kurdish atheist fined for burning Quran, 17 July 2025.
² Daily Record, CPS confirms 2027 trial date for attacker in Quran burning case, 16 July 2025.
³ The Times, Activist fined after Quran protest turns violent, 18 July 2025.
⁴ New Culture Forum, Newspeak episode, July 2025 — transcript, timestamp 5:22–5:35.
⁵ Daily Record, Scottish SDP leader arrested under Communications Act, 12 July 2025.
⁶ Telegraph, BLM activist who tried to burn Union Flag avoids prosecution, 2021.
⁷ BBC News, Colston Four cleared of criminal damage, 5 January 2022.
⁸ New Culture Forum, Newspeak transcript, timestamp 8:02–8:14.
⁹ Ibid., timestamp 11:26–11:37.
¹⁰ Guggenheim and Tate Modern exhibitions cited in NCF discussion, e.g. Robert Mapplethorpe show (Guggenheim 2019).
¹¹ New Culture Forum, Newspeak, timestamp 17:12–17:52.
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