L | A
By Jacob Mchangama
In February, 50-year-old Hamit Coskun was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” to the Islamic faith after burning a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. A KC told the National Secular Society that the charges were “plainly defective”, while the NSS accused prosecutors of reintroducing a blasphemy law “by the back door”.
It’s true, if Coskun is convicted, that this would mark yet another step in Europe’s steady capitulation to the “Jihadists’ Veto” — where fear of violent backlash dictates the boundaries of lawful expression.
Coskun said his display was a protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On X, Coskun claimed that Turkey is being turned into a “base for radical Islamists”. He also wanted to express solidarity with Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee who was assassinated in Sweden in January after burning Qurans in repeated public protests.
Coskun’s reference to events in Sweden illustrates a broader European trend.
A spate of Quran burnings, particularly in Scandinavia, has exposed the growing influence of what might be called outsourced censorship. This is the result of a mix of pressure from authoritarian regimes, especially the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); threats from jihadist groups; and appeasement by liberal democracies.
The OIC is an intergovernmental body representing 57 Muslim-majority countries that has in recent decades often conflated blasphemy — which is legal in most Western liberal democracies — with impermissible hate speech under international human rights laws. Clearly, this is a strategy to spearhead global laws against blasphemy.
The first domino to fall was a highly symbolic one.
In 2017, Denmark proudly repealed its long-dormant blasphemy law. Then-Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen declared it a triumph for free expression — especially powerful in the country that had refused to give in after Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sparked the Prophet Muhammad cartoon crisis back in 2005.
The country suffered a violent backlash and concerted diplomatic pressure. The repeal sent a clear message: democratic societies must not surrender to religious sensitivities or intimidation.
But in 2023, Rasmussen — by then Foreign Minister — reversed course. After a series of Quran burnings by far-Right protestors reignited international backlash and threats from extremists, he lamented that Denmark was “seen as a country that supports the insult and denigration of other countries and religions”.
A new law was passed banning the “improper treatment of scriptures” — a de facto return of the blasphemy ban, albeit with a narrower scope.
This wasn’t just a U-turn. It marked Denmark’s quiet capitulation to the very forces it once resisted. The OIC, which had long pushed an agenda to criminalise “defamation of religion”, seized Scandinavian Quran burnings to pass a UN resolution equating religious offence with incitement to religious hatred.
It was backed by China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Denmark, once the OIC’s defiant target, had now internalised its red lines.
These red lines are being enforced. Two protestors have been charged under the Danish law, after they tore out two pages of a Quran and dropped them into a puddle of water at a public debate about the very law under which they’re now being charged.
Denmark’s neighbour Sweden has followed suit.
Charged with incitement to hatred for after burning a Quran, Salwan Momika faced prosecution for his non-violent protest against Islamic fundamentalism. Days before his verdict, he was shot dead in his apartment. His co-defendant, also of Iraqi origin, was fined for the same act. In a democracy, peaceful expression was punished twice: first by the courts, then by a killer the state failed to stop.
The UK has its own examples where the state has failed to defend its citizens’ right to criticise religious doctrine. In the case of the Batley Grammar School teacher — who is still in hiding four years after showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on religious education — he was not even criticising the religion.
Yet the British Government allowed the mob to threaten and intimidate someone merely doing their job. And who can forget the 2023 case of the autistic pupil who received death threats for allegedly damaging a copy of the Quran?
The lesson of these events is grim: when democracies cave to the veto of violence, they embolden those who would silence with threats.
The real question is no longer if free speech is under threat from violent extremists — it undoubtedly is. The question now is whether we still have the courage to defend it. One can only hope that the UK comes to its senses and bucks the trend of appeasing the Jihadist’s Veto.
By Jacob Mchangama
In February, 50-year-old Hamit Coskun was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” to the Islamic faith after burning a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. A KC told the National Secular Society that the charges were “plainly defective”, while the NSS accused prosecutors of reintroducing a blasphemy law “by the back door”.
It’s true, if Coskun is convicted, that this would mark yet another step in Europe’s steady capitulation to the “Jihadists’ Veto” — where fear of violent backlash dictates the boundaries of lawful expression.
Coskun said his display was a protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On X, Coskun claimed that Turkey is being turned into a “base for radical Islamists”. He also wanted to express solidarity with Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee who was assassinated in Sweden in January after burning Qurans in repeated public protests.
Coskun’s reference to events in Sweden illustrates a broader European trend.
A spate of Quran burnings, particularly in Scandinavia, has exposed the growing influence of what might be called outsourced censorship. This is the result of a mix of pressure from authoritarian regimes, especially the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); threats from jihadist groups; and appeasement by liberal democracies.
The OIC is an intergovernmental body representing 57 Muslim-majority countries that has in recent decades often conflated blasphemy — which is legal in most Western liberal democracies — with impermissible hate speech under international human rights laws. Clearly, this is a strategy to spearhead global laws against blasphemy.
The first domino to fall was a highly symbolic one.
In 2017, Denmark proudly repealed its long-dormant blasphemy law. Then-Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen declared it a triumph for free expression — especially powerful in the country that had refused to give in after Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sparked the Prophet Muhammad cartoon crisis back in 2005.
The country suffered a violent backlash and concerted diplomatic pressure. The repeal sent a clear message: democratic societies must not surrender to religious sensitivities or intimidation.
But in 2023, Rasmussen — by then Foreign Minister — reversed course. After a series of Quran burnings by far-Right protestors reignited international backlash and threats from extremists, he lamented that Denmark was “seen as a country that supports the insult and denigration of other countries and religions”.
A new law was passed banning the “improper treatment of scriptures” — a de facto return of the blasphemy ban, albeit with a narrower scope.
This wasn’t just a U-turn. It marked Denmark’s quiet capitulation to the very forces it once resisted. The OIC, which had long pushed an agenda to criminalise “defamation of religion”, seized Scandinavian Quran burnings to pass a UN resolution equating religious offence with incitement to religious hatred.
It was backed by China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Denmark, once the OIC’s defiant target, had now internalised its red lines.
These red lines are being enforced. Two protestors have been charged under the Danish law, after they tore out two pages of a Quran and dropped them into a puddle of water at a public debate about the very law under which they’re now being charged.
Denmark’s neighbour Sweden has followed suit.
Charged with incitement to hatred for after burning a Quran, Salwan Momika faced prosecution for his non-violent protest against Islamic fundamentalism. Days before his verdict, he was shot dead in his apartment. His co-defendant, also of Iraqi origin, was fined for the same act. In a democracy, peaceful expression was punished twice: first by the courts, then by a killer the state failed to stop.
The UK has its own examples where the state has failed to defend its citizens’ right to criticise religious doctrine. In the case of the Batley Grammar School teacher — who is still in hiding four years after showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on religious education — he was not even criticising the religion.
Yet the British Government allowed the mob to threaten and intimidate someone merely doing their job. And who can forget the 2023 case of the autistic pupil who received death threats for allegedly damaging a copy of the Quran?
The lesson of these events is grim: when democracies cave to the veto of violence, they embolden those who would silence with threats.
The real question is no longer if free speech is under threat from violent extremists — it undoubtedly is. The question now is whether we still have the courage to defend it. One can only hope that the UK comes to its senses and bucks the trend of appeasing the Jihadist’s Veto.
