When Tolerance Becomes Surrender: The Hamit Coskun Case and the Liberal Crisis in Britain, By Richard Miller (Londonistan)

In the heart of Britain's legal system, a quiet but catastrophic shift has taken place, one that may signal the beginning of the end for liberal democracy as we know it. The recent conviction of Hamit Coskun for a "religiously aggravated public order offence" after publicly burning a copy of the Qur'an marks more than just a court ruling. It represents a broader pattern of capitulation by Western states to illiberal pressure, and reveals the inherent contradiction of attempting to maintain liberal order in the face of illiberal ideologies gaining political and cultural power.

Coskun's actions were controversial. He burned a Qur'an in public, a deliberate act of protest against what he described as crimes committed in the name of Islam. No doubt this was not smart in terms of self-protection, but he had had enough. Yet crucially, burning books is not illegal in Britain. He was not convicted for destroying a text, but for supposedly disturbing public order, a euphemism for the anticipated violent reaction of others. In short, Coskun was not punished for what he did, but for what others might do in response.

This is the very definition of the "heckler's veto." In convicting Coskun, the British state has now codified the idea that if a group threatens violence in response to speech, it is the speaker who must be silenced. It rewards intimidation. It punishes peaceful protest. It upends the very principle of equal protection under the law. A parallel case exists with weapons bans, with the state of Victoria banning machetes as these were used in non-white gang fights. Don't address those who cause the problem if they are non-white, and hence "special," is the ideology.

If Coskun had burned a Bible, there would have been no trial, no arrest, and likely no public backlash. The message is unmistakable: some beliefs are now more equal than others, those of the coming replacement culture of course. We have entered the era of selective blasphemy law, where certain groups enjoy unofficial sacred status while others are open to ridicule without consequence.

This development is not isolated. It is part of a growing trend in Western societies where minority groups with strong, theologically driven worldviews gain increasing political leverage. These worldviews often do not respect pluralism, secularism, or freedom of expression. Instead, they seek deference and ideological accommodation. And in the name of "inclusion" or avoiding "Islamophobia," and "racism," liberal institutions are increasingly willing to provide it.

The consequence is a slow-motion erosion of the Enlightenment values on which liberal democracy was built. The right to offend, to dissent, to challenge dogma, these are the cornerstones of a free society. When the state punishes not violence, but speech that merely provokes the threat of violence, it has abandoned neutrality. It has taken sides with the forces of chaos.

This legal precedent extends far beyond Coskun. It sends a chilling message: if a religious or cultural group can credibly threaten unrest, it will be granted special protections from criticism. The implication for future political discourse is grim. Satire will fade. Public criticism of ideologies will dry up. Journalists, artists, and dissidents will self-censor, not out of respect, but out of fear. Liberal culture will end.

The tragedy is compounded by the historical context. British authorities turned a blind eye for years to systemic abuses, such as the grooming gang scandals, for fear of appearing "racist" or "Islamophobic." Now, they appear more willing to criminalise protest against those abuses than to prevent them. It is not a stretch to say that liberal Britain is in retreat due to slow conquest the result of cowardice.

Liberalism, if it is to survive, must rediscover its moral courage. It must be willing to offend. It must be willing to protect speech even when, especially when, that speech challenges dominant narratives or rising powers within society. Because if free speech only applies to the uncontroversial, it is not free.

The Coskun case is a warning. It shows what happens when tolerance becomes surrender, when pluralism becomes appeasement, and when fear trumps freedom. If Britain and the West continues down this path, it may soon find that it has protected everything except the very liberties that made it worth protecting in the first place.

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/06/05/has-the-uk-just-signed-its-own-death-warrant-n4940477

"A court ruling on Monday in Britain, if it is allowed to stand, could do nothing less than change the course of that country's history, and that of the entire world. The U.K. has taken a decisive step away from the principles of free speech that it played a dominant role in formulating and giving to the world. There is serious cause for doubt now about whether the Sceptred Isle will even survive as a free society.

Officially, Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a "religiously aggravated public order offence." His specific crime, however, was that he publicly burned a copy of the Qur'an, the Islamic holy book. It is not a crime to burn the Qur'an or any book in Britain; Coskun wasn't convicted of burning the book as such, but of disturbing the public order by doing so. That means that he poses a problem for British law not insofar as he burned a book, which is permitted, but because in doing so he opened the door to public disturbances, which is not permitted. In other words, Hamit Coskun was convicted of a crime because [radical] Muslims might have rioted or committed jihad terror attacks over his actions.

In convicting Coskun, the U.K. has thus enshrined the heckler's veto as part of British law. If he had burned a Bible, no one would have cared, and there would have been no possible disturbance to the "public order." The threat of jihad violence is now guiding the course of British law and infringing upon the freedom of speech. The British government has now compounded the prospect of some Muslims reacting violently to the burning of the Qur'an by making it clear that whether they do or not, the culprit will have to face the wrath of the British state.

For his part, Coskun charged, quite correctly, that his conviction would "deter others from exercising their democratic rights to peaceful protest and freedom of expression." Reading that, British authorities likely nodded their heads in agreement, as that's exactly what the conviction is designed to do. Nevertheless, Coskun, who has made it clear that he intended his burning of the Qur'an to call attention to the crimes done in the name of Islam … vowed that he would "continue to campaign against the threat of Islam." Coskun pointed out that "Christian blasphemy laws were repealed in this country more than 15 years ago and it cannot be right to prosecute someone for blaspheming against Islam." He asked a question that British authorities would do well to ponder, but won't: "Would I have been prosecuted if I'd set fire to a copy of the bible outside Westminster Abbey? I doubt it."

And so what now for Britain? The conviction of Hamit Coskun sets an extremely dangerous precedent, for even though he wasn't actually convicted of blasphemy against Islam, everyone in the U.K. knows that was the point of putting him on trial in the first place, as he himself noted. Now that British authorities have made it clear that desecration of the Qur'an is a criminal offense, the door is open to the adoption of other provisions of Islamic law (Sharia).

In fact, the door to this was already opened wide by the widespread determination, which spanned decades and still lingers, to ignore the massive phenomenon of Muslim rape gangs praying on tens of thousands, and possibly even hundreds of thousands, of British girls. British authorities let it happen on a grand scale for fear that stopping the perpetrators would be "racist" and "Islamophobic."

So now in Britain, we have the authorities' tacit acceptance of the Qur'anic … Sharia blasphemy laws. As Islamic law continues to advance in Britain, non-Muslims will find themselves increasingly subjugated. Many will convert to Islam simply to escape discrimination and social opprobrium, as many have already done.

If this acquiescence to Islamic law continues, eventually the non-Muslims of Britain will be like the Christians of Egypt and Pakistan: a tiny, embattled minority, eking out a precarious existence in a hostile culture. Remember: "Copt" means "Egyptian." The Egyptians have been colonized in their own land, reduced to a despised minority within it. The same process is now well underway in Britain."