LONDON — On Monday, Britain sentenced Hamit Coskun, 51, to pay £240 (roughly $325) for burning a copy of the Quran and shouting “Islam is religion of terrorism” outside the Turkish embassy in London.
Coskun’s behavior was obnoxious, but not illegal: Britain abolished its blasphemy laws in 2008. His case shows that they are returning under the guise of maintaining “public order.” In a tense and divided society, free speech is a luxury that the government cannot afford.
Coskun got off with a fine. Lucy Connolly, prosecuted under the same law, was not so lucky.
Lucy Connolly is Britain’s foremost political prisoner. Connolly, a 41-year-old childminder and the mother of a 12-year-old daughter, is currently serving a 31-month sentence for “stirring up racial hatred” in a single tweet that she deleted less than four hours after posting. On May 20, a court rejected Connolly’s application to appeal.
Connolly’s case is the latest in a series revealing the decline of free speech in Britain and the rise of a “two-tier” justice system that treats ordinary people like enemies of the state.
Before we get into the legal technicalities, let’s review what happened:
On July 29, 2024, Axel Rudakubana, the 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants to Britain, went on a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift–themed children’s party in Southport, northern England. Rudakubana murdered three girls—ages 6, 7, and 9— and critically wounded six children and two adults.
Inaccurate claims on social media said the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker. In response, the police described the man they had arrested as having been born in Cardiff, Wales. Locals, however, knew something of his background, and that fed the online rumor mill.