Oh joy. Blasphemy is just the kind of punishment we need in this country.
Chillmm8 on
Well, that’s a sad and depressing day for the British legal system and our culture as a whole.
Hopefully the government will come out hard against this and call out the CPS and our judiciary for allowing this abomination of criminal justice to happen.
Freddichio on
Worth pointing out here that the issue was *where* he did it more than what he did.
Killing a pig is legal, but if you deliberately go to the RSPCA and butcher a pig outside then it could be seen as a public order offense – you’re deliberately doing it in order to upset people and provoke a reaction.
If you’re deliberately trying to upset people in order to provoke a reaction, and actually go out of your way to make them feel uncomfortable, *at the very least* you’re an absolute dickhead, and I’d far rather a society in which the rule wasn’t “you can do anything you want to make people feel terrible as long as it’s not actually hitting them you’re good”.
This isn’t a blasphemy offense, this is a public order offense – the man in question was deliberately and knowingly doing whatever he could think of to try and provoke others into violence. And while that’s not *as* bad, actively trying to goad others into violence by any means necessary means he’s not innocent.
If he was out of coal for his BBQ and put a copy of the Quaran on it – also burning a Quaran – he’d be fine.
So no, blasphemy laws aren’t back – this guy was actively trying to breach the peace and cause public order incidents, bordering on trying to incite others to violence – and *that’s* what he’s been charged with.
Wonderful_Welder_796 on
Public order offences include: “**Disorderly Behavior/Racially or Religiously Aggravated Disorderly Behavior**”. This fits it. The act is from 1986. There is very reasonable debate around the act itself, but to say this is some kind of new thing about “reintroducing blasphemy” is ignorant.
LonelyStranger8467 on
So no matter how irrational your reaction is to something, if someone does it knowing they’ll likely get a reaction then it’s a public order offence.
People get irrationally angry at a lot of things.
the_englishman on
A lot of people in this comment section are fundamentally misunderstanding what blasphemy laws were, and what UK public order and hate crime laws actually do.
Blasphemy laws (now abolished in England and Wales) made it a crime to Insult or show contempt for sacred religious beliefs, texts, or figures (especially Christian ones) even if no individual was harmed or disturbed. They protected religions themselves, not people.
Today’s laws, like the Public Order Act 1986 and Crime and Disorder Act 1998, focus on protecting individuals, not beliefs and punishing acts that are abusive or threatening, and then only when they are likely to cause real-world harm (like harassment, alarm, or fear)
He is being convicted of the later, not the former.
honkballs on
>The court determined that Coskun’s actions of burning the Quran while shouting inflammatory statements such as “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” went beyond protected free speech
It’s comical they even use the term “free speech” still, it’s not, it’s government controlled restricted speech, and being mean to a certain religion is now in the “not allowed” list.
We used to mock Russia, North Korea, China etc for having restricted speech and the government controlling what they can and can’t say, but the UK is just the same now, just nuances on what you’re allowed to say between them.
MDK1980 on
No mention of the guy who stabbed him, or the delivery guy who got a few kicks in, too?
iTAMEi on
Legitimate act of protest against a sad march of his country towards theocracy
9 commenti
Oh joy. Blasphemy is just the kind of punishment we need in this country.
Well, that’s a sad and depressing day for the British legal system and our culture as a whole.
Hopefully the government will come out hard against this and call out the CPS and our judiciary for allowing this abomination of criminal justice to happen.
Worth pointing out here that the issue was *where* he did it more than what he did.
Killing a pig is legal, but if you deliberately go to the RSPCA and butcher a pig outside then it could be seen as a public order offense – you’re deliberately doing it in order to upset people and provoke a reaction.
If you’re deliberately trying to upset people in order to provoke a reaction, and actually go out of your way to make them feel uncomfortable, *at the very least* you’re an absolute dickhead, and I’d far rather a society in which the rule wasn’t “you can do anything you want to make people feel terrible as long as it’s not actually hitting them you’re good”.
This isn’t a blasphemy offense, this is a public order offense – the man in question was deliberately and knowingly doing whatever he could think of to try and provoke others into violence. And while that’s not *as* bad, actively trying to goad others into violence by any means necessary means he’s not innocent.
If he was out of coal for his BBQ and put a copy of the Quaran on it – also burning a Quaran – he’d be fine.
So no, blasphemy laws aren’t back – this guy was actively trying to breach the peace and cause public order incidents, bordering on trying to incite others to violence – and *that’s* what he’s been charged with.
Public order offences include: “**Disorderly Behavior/Racially or Religiously Aggravated Disorderly Behavior**”. This fits it. The act is from 1986. There is very reasonable debate around the act itself, but to say this is some kind of new thing about “reintroducing blasphemy” is ignorant.
So no matter how irrational your reaction is to something, if someone does it knowing they’ll likely get a reaction then it’s a public order offence.
People get irrationally angry at a lot of things.
A lot of people in this comment section are fundamentally misunderstanding what blasphemy laws were, and what UK public order and hate crime laws actually do.
Blasphemy laws (now abolished in England and Wales) made it a crime to Insult or show contempt for sacred religious beliefs, texts, or figures (especially Christian ones) even if no individual was harmed or disturbed. They protected religions themselves, not people.
Today’s laws, like the Public Order Act 1986 and Crime and Disorder Act 1998, focus on protecting individuals, not beliefs and punishing acts that are abusive or threatening, and then only when they are likely to cause real-world harm (like harassment, alarm, or fear)
He is being convicted of the later, not the former.
>The court determined that Coskun’s actions of burning the Quran while shouting inflammatory statements such as “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” went beyond protected free speech
It’s comical they even use the term “free speech” still, it’s not, it’s government controlled restricted speech, and being mean to a certain religion is now in the “not allowed” list.
We used to mock Russia, North Korea, China etc for having restricted speech and the government controlling what they can and can’t say, but the UK is just the same now, just nuances on what you’re allowed to say between them.
No mention of the guy who stabbed him, or the delivery guy who got a few kicks in, too?
Legitimate act of protest against a sad march of his country towards theocracy