“I may be forced to flee the UK and move to the USA, where President Trump has stood for free speech and against Islamic extremism.”
The Trump administration is in talks to bring a man who burned a Quran in Britain to the US as a refugee. If Hamit Coskun loses his "blasphemy case" this week, the State Department is preparing to have him come to the US as a refugee.
The potential intervention in the case may escalate tensions between the US and the UK concerning free speech laws in the respective nations. Officials in the Trump administration have been critical of various laws passed in the UK that have appeared to erode free speech rights.
Coskun was able to reverse his conviction of a religiously aggravated public order offense after he went outside the Turkish embassy in London and burned the Quran. However, that decision is being challenged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on Tuesday.
According to the Telegraph, the case is “one of several cases the administration has made note of.” Coskun had sought asylum in the UK after fleeing his home country of Turkey and said that terrorists had destroyed his life. He told the outlet that if he loses the case he may be forced “to flee” the UK and seek refugee status in the US.
“For me, as the victim of Islamic terrorism, I cannot remain silent. I may be forced to flee the UK and move to the USA, where President Trump has stood for free speech and against Islamic extremism,” Coskun said. “If I have to do so, then, to me, the UK will have effectively fallen to Islamism and the speech codes that it wishes to impose on the non-Muslim world.”
When Coskun set fire to the Quran, he held it above his head and shouted, “Islam is religion of terrorism” as well as “f*ck Islam.” A stranger on the street tried to stab him with a blade and then kicked him when Coskun fell on the ground. Moussa Kadri, the passerby, got a 20-week prison sentence.
Coskun was given a charge of harassing the “religious institution of Islam.” However, that charge was later changed after the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union argued that his case was evidence the UK government was prosecuting blasphemy.
Lawyers at trial for CPS argued that he was not being tried for burning the Quran, but that he was being prosecuted for “disorderly behavior in public.” He was convicted and fined, but that conviction was later overturned. That is being challenged again by CPS in court on Tuesday.
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