The British legal system is once again facing accusations of two-tier justice after a Muslim man who attacked an activist burning the Qur’an was spared jail after a lenient sentence was handed down on Tuesday.
Judge Adam Hiddleston at the Southwark Crown Court gave Moussa Kadri, 59, a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, meaning that unless he re-offends, he will be spared any time behind bars.
Kadri, a Muslim man described as being ‘from Kensington’, flew into a rage in February after seeing Armenian-Kurdish atheist activist Hamit Coskun, 50, burn a copy of the Qur’an outside the Turkish embassy in London.
Shouting, “I’m going to kill you”, Kadri ran up to the activist and began slashing him with a knife. As Coksun fell to the ground, the knifeman continued to kick and spit on him while saying, according to The Telegraph: “Burning the Koran? It’s my religion, you don’t burn the Koran.”
The court heard that Kadri, who pleaded guilty, later told police that he felt he was protecting his religion by attacking Coskun.
The judge remarked, “Knife crime of any sort is something that these courts take extremely seriously. When armed with a knife, there is always the possibility that really serious injury or death, even if unintended, could result. Losing your temper and your self-control in the way that you did that day was disgraceful and is something that I know you are rightly ashamed of.”
However, the judge accepted that Kadri was “remorseful” about the attack as well as the testimony of character witnesses, and thus decided not to jail the knifeman. Kadri will, however, have to complete 150 hours of community service and pay a statutory surcharge of £150.
Stunningly, this was less than the amount that Coksun was ordered to pay in June for burning a book after being convicted of a “religiously aggravated public order offence”. Despite his claims that he was merely motivated by an antipathy towards the Islamic faith and not individual Muslims, Judge John McGarva found that Coksun’s actions were “highly provocative” and claimed that they were “motivated at least in part by a hatred of Muslims”.
The Armenian-Kurdish activist has launched an appeal and has described his conviction as an “assault on free speech” and argued that he would not have faced the same punishment if he had burnt a copy of the Christian Bible.
The Free Speech Union described Tuesday’s ruling as another example of “two-tier” justice in Britain, and said: “Had a knife-wielding white male pleaded guilty to attacking a Muslim for breaching a Christian blasphemy code, you can bet your bottom dollar he would have gone to prison.”
Conservative MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Robert Jenrick, wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions, questioning why the sentence against the knifeman was so lenient.
“This was a landmark case where significant violence was deployed to oppress the victim’s right to freedom of expression, primarily because of the attacker’s religious views,” Jenrick wrote.
“When a man arms himself and deploys violence to shut someone up, the law must bite; if the [Crown Prosecution Service] will not use the tools Parliament has given it, I will promptly put this before the House.”
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