In June we discovered that England has an Islamic blasphemy law, when a court convicted Hamit Coskun for the ‘crime’ of burning a Quran. Now we’ve learned that it’s even worse. Not only will the law punish you if you offend the institution of Islam, but it will also treat Muslims who respond violently with the lightest of touches. For when Hamit burned that Quran outside the Turkish embassy earlier this year, he was attacked. A man named Moussa Kadri argued with Hamit, said he was going to kill him, left the scene and returned with a knife. Kadri then slashed at Hamit with the knife, knocked him to the floor and kicked him in a frenzied attack. Kadri was charged with and pleaded guilty to assault and possessing a bladed weapon. Yesterday he was spared jail.
We have a legal system where a man can be convicted of a crime for burning a religious book, while the Muslim who attacked him with a knife is treated as though his anger is entirely justified
The judge, Adam Hiddleston, gave the game away in the third sentence of his remarks, where he said ‘You were clearly deeply offended by a man who was protesting outside the consulate and who as part of his protest had set fire to the holy Quran’. It is clear that the entire approach Hiddleston took to this sentencing was based on the idea that to burn a ‘holy’ Quran is a very sacrilegious and blasphemous act. The judge went on to make excuse after excuse for Kadri.
The knife, the judge noted, was not ‘in the same league as, say, a sharpened kitchen knife’. While he did acknowledge that it ‘was pointed and it could have caused serious injury’, he seemed to suggest that Kadri did not have any intention to stab Hamit. This is a man who left the scene of an argument to find a knife and returned to attack a stranger with it.
Judge Hiddleston clearly thought highly of Kadri, noting that he was of ‘hitherto exemplary character’. So convinced of Kadri’s good character was the judge that he described this violent attack with a blade as ‘losing your temper and your self-control’. This is frankly bizarre. A normal, civilised, decent person does not conduct a violent assault with a potentially deadly weapon because someone burns a book. Nor do they typically leave the area, find a knife and return. Nor indeed does such an ‘exemplary’ person seek to ‘mislead those investigating this case by sending a photograph of a palette knife’.
So Kadri saw a stranger burning a Quran, argued with him, left, returned with a knife, conducted a savage attack and then misled the police in an apparent attempt to downplay the incident. Judge Hiddleston seemed to accept that Kadri’s anger was justified, for after all this was a holy Quran. The judge then handed down a ‘suspended sentence’, meaning this violent man walked free.
Criticism of the sentence has been widespread. Stephen Evans, Chief Executive of the National Secular Society, said ‘the lenient sentence in this case is unlikely to deter anyone seeking to use violence to shut down expression they disagree with.’
Toby Young, Director of the Free Speech Union went further, saying, ‘this sends a green light to any Muslim who wants to enforce an Islamic blasphemy code by taking the law into their own hands. The court is effective saying that if you attack a blasphemer with a knife you won’t have to spend a day behind bars.’
It’s hard to argue with Toby. We have a legal system where a man can be convicted of a crime for burning a religious book, while the Muslim who attacked him with a knife is treated as though his anger is entirely justified.
The comparison, as always is with Lucy Connolly. We have a legal system in which a deleted tweet about setting fire to hotels ‘for all I care’ results in a 31 month sentence, while a Muslim who seeks to enforce a blasphemy code by threatening to kill someone and then attacking them with a knife spends not a single day behind bars.
There will be those who insist that justice has been done. The sentencing guidelines have been followed, and so all is well. But two-tier justice is more insidious than that. Kadri was charged with the most minor offences possible.
The Crown Prosecution Service could have brought more serious charges. Instead, they chose ‘common assault’, which is more usually used for threatening words, any physical contact at all, or spitting on someone. They also did not choose to charge Kadri with ‘perverting the course of justice’ in respect of his sending a photo of a pallet knife.
Common assault carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison. If Kadri had been found guilty of more serious relevant charges, the maximum sentence could have been years.
I asked the CPS to account for these charging decisions. They did not respond. Hamit Coskun’s appeal against his conviction will be heard in October. Moussa Kadri walks free. And we now know that the English judiciary will refer to the ‘holy’ Quran while making excuses for violent Muslims who wield knives and seek to enforce their blasphemy codes.
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