The Trump administration is weighing involvement in the case of a protester who was fined for burning a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London, as British prosecutors seek to reinstate his quashed conviction, reports show.
Officials are said to be discussing whether to grant refugee status to 51-year-old Hamit Coskun if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) wins his appeal, with a senior US government official saying The Telegraph the case is one of many “of which the government has taken note.”
Coskun, of Armenian Kurdish descent, had initially sought asylum in Britain from Turkey, where he said Islamic extremists “destroyed” his family’s lives and where he was jailed for protesting against Islamist rule.
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Hamit Coskun has said he could ‘escape’ to America if the Crown Prosecution Service succeeds in its High Court challenge. (Aaron Chown/PA Images via Getty Images)
On February 13, 2025, he traveled to the Turkish consulate in London and set fire to a copy of the Quran, shouting slogans including “Islam is [the] religion of terrorism” and “f— Islam.”
There he was attacked by Moussa Kadri, a passerby who chased him with a knife, kicked him and spat on him.
Kadri was later given a suspended prison sentence after being convicted of assault and having a bladed article in a public place.
Initially accused of harassing the “religious institution of IslamCoskun’s case prompted intervention from the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union, which argued that prosecutors were essentially reviving blasphemy laws that had already been abolished in 2008.
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Coskun was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offense and fined in June 2025.
In October, Coskun’s conviction was quashed when a judge ruled that while burning a Quran was “desperately disturbing and offensive” to many Muslims, the right to free speech “must include the right to express opinions that are offensive, shocking or disturbing.”
The CPS is now seeking to have that decision overturned at London’s High Court, with Coskun telling The Telegraph that if the appeal goes against him he may be forced to ‘flee’ the country.
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At the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance said that “in Britain and across Europe, freedom of expression, I fear, is on the decline.” (Matthias Schrader/AP Photo)
“For me, as a victim of Islamic terrorism, I cannot remain silent. I could be forced to flee Britain and move to the US, where President Trump stood up for freedom of expression and against Islamic extremism,” he told the newspaper.
“If I have to do that, then for me Britain will in fact have fallen prey to Islamism and the speech codes it wants to impose on the non-Muslim world,” he added.
President Donald Trump and the US government have already criticized the British and European governments for increased restrictions on speech.
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In 2025, Trump criticized Britain’s laws around online speeches, saying that “strange things happen there” and that it was “not a good thing.”
At the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance also said: “In Britain and across Europe, freedom of expression, I fear, is on the decline.”
