This week, Sir Joel Bennathan KC overturned the conviction of Hamit Coskun — a Turkish ex-Muslim prosecuted for burning a Quran outside the Turkish consulate.
The judge reminded the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of a fundamental principle: there is no offence of blasphemy in English law. The CPS had attempted to use public order legislation to punish Coskun for “offending religious feelings” — a move journalist David Shipley describes as an attempt to create a “backdoor blasphemy law.”
Shipley joins Josh Howie to discuss why this case is a pivotal moment for free speech in Britain, how CPS lawyers effectively invented a charge, and why this issue won’t end here unless politicians hold the CPS to account.
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