A Kurdish-Armenian man who burned a Quran outside Turkey’s embassy in the United Kingdom won an appeal on Friday against his conviction, in a ruling hailed by free-speech campaigners, Agence France-Presse reported.

Hamit Coşkun, 51, was found guilty in June of a religiously aggravated public order offense and fined.

Coşkun, who was born in Turkey, set the religious book on fire outside Ankara’s consulate in London in February while shouting slogans against Islam.

His case was taken up by the National Secular Society (NSS) and the Free Speech Union (FSU), who argued that Coşkun was essentially being prosecuted for blasphemy.

Turkey has previously condemned protests in Western countries where the Muslim holy book was vandalized, including a series of Quran burnings in Sweden that sparked demonstrations across the Islamic world in 2023.

Ruling in Coşkun’s favor, Judge Joel Bennathan told the Southwark Crown Court on Friday that no blasphemy offense exists under British law.

While “burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive,” the judge said, the criminal code does not seek to “avoid people being upset, even grievously upset.”

“The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb,” he added.

Blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales in 2008.

‘Dangers of radical Islam’

Several European countries have seen protests in which activists, sometimes from the far right, damage or destroy religious symbols or books while claiming free speech protections.

Those protests have often triggered backlash from Muslim countries, including Turkey.

After Salwan Momika, a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee, burned a Quran at a protest in 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan complained about Stockholm’s decision to allow the demonstration while holding up Sweden’s NATO bid.

In a statement Coşkun said he came to England “having been persecuted in Turkey, to be able to speak freely about the dangers of radical Islam.”

“I am reassured that, despite many troubling developments, I will now be free to educate the British public about my beliefs,” he added.

Britain’s Free Speech Union said the successful appeal sent a message that “anti-religious protests, however offensive to true believers, must be tolerated.”

Coşkun has also received support from Robert Jenrick, the opposition Conservative Party’s justice spokesperson and a former leadership contender.

Until May, when the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced that it had abandoned its armed conflict, Turkey had been engaged in a deadly four-decade battle with Kurdish fighters.

Armenians, meanwhile, have long sought international recognition for what they say was the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of their people during World War I.