We now live in a country where, once more, it appears to be a crime to commit blasphemy. This is the inevitable and justifiable conclusion many have made following the news yesterday that a man who burnt a copy of the Koran was charged with ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ against ‘the religious institution of Islam’.
The National Secular Society has been volubly alarmed at the case
The charge made against Hamit Coskun, who allegedly performed the act outside the Turkish Consulate in London in February, is thought to be the first time anybody has been prosecuted for harassing an ‘institution’, in the form of Islam, under the Public Order Act. Following a backlash to the news, the Crown Prosecution Service has since sought to clarify that the wording of the charge was ‘incorrectly applied’. It has now ‘substituted a new charge.’
The National Secular Society has been volubly alarmed at the case, suggesting it could presage ‘the reinstatement of an offence of blasphemy in English law by the back door’.
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