As a Muslim, I do not welcome the conviction of a man who set fire to a copy of the Quran. Hamit Coskun – a 50-year-old of Armenian and Kurdish descent who was born and raised in Turkey, and whose family have suffered persecution at the hands of Islamists – was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence.
He was fined £240 after he held the flaming book aloft outside the Turkish consulate in Knightsbridge while shouting “Islam is religion of terrorism” and “F*** Islam”. His one-man protest wound up when he was himself assaulted by a passerby.
