Blasphemy Laws Have No Place in a Liberal Democracy
In the United Kingdom, on 13 February, Hamit Coskun, 50, burned a Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate in London as he shouted derisive comments such as “f*** Islam,” “The Qur’an is burning,” and “Islam is a religion of terrorism.”
Coskun was himself viciously attacked, stabbed, hospitalized, and then later arrested.
Criminalizing Criticisms of Islam
At Westminster Magistrates Court District, Judge John McGarva found him guilty of public disorder due to the timing and location of his Qur’an burning as well as the profanity of his language at the time. McGarva stated that Coskun’s actions were “provocative and taunting” and rooted in a “deep-seated hatred of Islam and its followers” despite Coskun explicitly denying that he hated Muslims during the trial.
Alarmingly, McGarva claimed, “It is not possible to separate his views about the religion from his views about its followers” so that an attack on Islam is a de facto attack on adherents to Islam which requires a de jure prosecution. In addition, in what can only be called a textbook case of victim-blaming, McGarva reasoned that the fact that he was violently attacked was proof of the offensive and disorderly nature of his actions.
Who is Hamit Coskun?
Coskun, an atheist, and Turkish migrant of Armenian and Kurdish descent, left Turkey due to the rise of militant Islam and the Islamicization of Turkey’s government.
Writing in the Spectator, Coskun wrote:
Some may say that book-burning is a poor substitute for reasoned debate. I would counter that it was a symbolic, non-violent form of expression intended to draw attention to the ongoing move from the secularism of my country of birth to a regime which embraces hardline Islam.
As I told Westminster Magistrates’ Court, what I did constituted political protest and the law, as I understood it, was on my side. CPS guidance makes clear that legitimate protest can be offensive and on occasion must be, if it is to be effective. In that spirit, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects not just polite speech but speech that offends, shocks or disturbs. Political expression, above all, is meant to enjoy the strongest protection.
Alas, the judge ruled otherwise. And the reasoning deployed to convict me raises troubling questions, not only about the scope of public order law but about whether Britain is witnessing the quiet return of blasphemy laws.
Although the man who assaulted me is being prosecuted separately, the Crown says his action helped to prove my guilt. It argued that because I was attacked, my behaviour must not have been peaceful. Under this logic, ‘disorderly’ no longer depends on conduct, but on how offended or aggressive someone else chooses to be in response.
Britain’s Blasphemy Laws
To give some historical context, Britain repealed its blasphemy laws in 2008. But one now wonders if prosecution for supposedly violating “public order” will prove to be a backdoor into which blasphemy laws are covertly smuggled and to curtail public criticism of Islam.
The last person to be executed for blasphemy in the United Kingdom was James Aikenhead, executed at the age of 20 in 1697, for disdainful mockery of the Trinity:
That ... the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra's fables, in profane allusion to Esop's Fables; That he railed on Christ, saying, he had learned magick in Egypt, which enabled him to perform those pranks which were called miracles: That he called the New Testament the history of the imposter Christ; That he said Moses was the better artist and the better politician; and he preferred Muhammad to Christ: That the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictions, that he admired the stupidity of the world in being so long deluded by them: That he rejected the mystery of the Trinity as unworthy of refutation; and scoffed at the incarnation of Christ.
Blasphemy laws were still a factor in Britain in the late 1970s evidenced by religious outrage at the Monty Python movie Life of Brian. The movie was banned by several local authorities in the UK or else given an X rating (18+ years). Ironically, the movie risks being banned today, not because of religion, but because of the alleged transphobia in its famous “Lorretta” scene about a man who wants to become a woman.
In 1977, The Gay News and its editor Denis Lemon were found guilty of blasphemous libel for publishing the poem “The Love that Dares to Speak its Name,” by Professor James Kirkup. The poem is written from the perspective of the Roman centurion who took Jesus’ body to the tomb and then had sex with his corpse. The centurion claimed that Jesus also had gay sex with John the Baptist, Judas Iscariot, Paul of Tarsus, Herod’s guards, and even Pontius Pilate. Prosecuting Counsel John Smyth told the court: "it may be said that this is a love poem - it is not, it is a poem about buggery."
Why Blasphemy Laws are a Bad Idea!
For those who care, I am an Anglican priest and theologian, rather keen on Jesus, the Trinity, and pontificating about angels, ethics, and the hereafter.
Yet I consider blasphemy laws to be a needless attack on the fundamental values of a liberal democracy, values that I believe derive in part from the Christian tradition with its claim that love for God must be accompanied by love for one’s neighbor, enemies, and outsiders. To truly love “others,” one must be willing to permit the criticism of yourself by others, whether it is about your politics, ethics, or religion, and even if it is laced with vehemency and umbrage.
I do not think that burning a Qur’an is good for a civil society. I regard it as a needlessly incendiary act and believe it will only stir-up Islamic radicals further. I believe such acts should be verbally condemned and socially shamed by political and religious leaders.
That said, I would never want to ban the burning of sacred texts for two reasons.
First, governments that police blasphemy can extend their powers of inquisition to other religions and to other matters.
Remember, a government that can punish you for burning a Qur’an can also punish you for burning a Jewish and Christian Bible, the Bhagavata, the Communist Manifesto, the Humanist Manifesto, Trump’s The Art of the Deal, the novel 1984, Lesbian novels, and even the Book of Mormon.
I am all for preserving religious freedom and protecting religious people from persecution, discrimination, and harassment. However, symbolic criticism of a religion is none of those things, whether it is the comedy of Rowan Atkinson, the anti-religious rants of Richard Dawkins, or even blasphemous art like Piss Christ, where a plastic crucifix is encased in a bottle of urine. When I hear or see such things, I tend to roll my eyes rather than reach for a pitchfork.
There is a very good reason why the government should not overtly or covertly get into the blasphemy policing game. It requires taking sides in religious disputes, it requires censorship of religion and irreligion, and it runs roughshod over free speech and freedom of religion. All of which compromises the secularity of government and endangers the freedoms of the faithful and the skeptic alike.
Governments do well to stay out of sectarian debates, policing religious dissenters, and censoring views that certain religious groups do not want to hear.
Second, appeals to preserving “public order” are a façade for the real threat to public order: the fear of Muslim retaliation.
Judge McGarva claimed, “I do not find that this prosecution is an attempt to bring back and expand blasphemy law.” And “Criticism of Islam is not what the defendant is charged with, he is charged with disorderly behaviour.” Accordingly, Coskun was convicted under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986 for engaging in behaviour "within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress", motivated McGarva said by "hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam."
Coskun’s provocative act was not violent, not inciting violence, nor condoning violence. It was a protest against Islam, Islamic violence, and Islam’s role in Turkish politics. He was not a threat to public order. The real threat to public order are a minority of Muslim zealots, who believe that all affronts to their religion must be met with violent and even lethal reprisals.
To prosecute criticism of religion on the grounds of public order, as a crime against fellow citizens rather than against deities, is the attempt to preserve blasphemy laws by giving them a secular interpretation, but the effect is the same: the criminalization of the criticism of a religion.
After the verdict, Coskun asked a very good question: “Would I have been prosecuted if I'd set fire to a copy of the bible outside Westminster Abbey? I doubt it.”
Two-Tier Policing in Britain
One cannot imagine British police arresting someone for burning a Christian Bible or a picture of the Pope even it was accompanied with profanity, outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, and within earshot of a bishop.
It is simply impossible to view Coskun’s case apart from the tensions between Islam and British civil society. In the minds of the ruling class, British Muslims are either a powerful voting bloc that must be appeased, potentially violent protagonists who must be assuaged, or else theocratic barbarians who simply cannot acquiesce to the freedoms and norms of a liberal democracy. When it comes to British Muslims, government authorities engage in a mix of pandering, paternalism, and suffer from a pathological fear of provoking them.
A government that champions liberal democracy should believe that its first duty is to protect its citizens from religious fanaticism rather than protect the feelings of the religiously fanatical. If one cannot exercise and enjoy religion within a liberal democracy, where one’s religion is subject to comedy and criticism, then one should feel obliged to take that religion elsewhere.
In light of Coskun’s prosecution, one wonders now if the British Government thinks it expedient to protect Salmon Rushdie from assassination attempts, or whether public interest would be better served by extraditing him from Britain to Iran in the interest of preserving “public order.”
Final Thought
The Romans had a saying, Deorum injuriae diis curae, which is Latin for “offenses against the gods are the god’s concern.”
A saying I hope magistrates in the United Kingdom familiarize themselves with before the next blasphemy trial takes place under the pretext of “public order.”
Rev. Dr. Michael F. Bird (PhD University of Queensland) is Deputy Principal at Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government and with N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies.
Thank you for that reasonable, sensible response.
Well said.