Man who burned Quran in London may get US asylum as case draws Trump administration attention
The Trump administration is weighing involvement in the case of a protester who was fined for burning a Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London, as U.K. prosecutors look to reinstate his overturned conviction, according to reports.
Officials are said to be discussing granting 51-year-old Hamit Coskun refugee status if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) wins its appeal, with a senior U.S. administration official telling The Telegraph the case is one of several "the administration has made note of."
Coskun, of Armenian-Kurdish descent, had initially sought asylum in the U.K. from Turkey, where he says Islamic extremists "destroyed" his family’s life and where he was jailed for protesting Islamist governance.
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On Feb. 13, 2025, he traveled to the Turkish Consulate in London and set fire to a copy of the Quran while 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 later received a suspended prison sentence after being convicted of assault and having a bladed article in a public place.
Initially charged with harassing the "religious institution of Islam," Coskun’s case drew intervention from the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union, who argued prosecutors were effectively reviving blasphemy laws already abolished in 2008.
Coskun was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offense and fined in June 2025.
That October, Coskun’s conviction was overturned when a judge ruled that while burning a Quran was "desperately upsetting and offensive" to many Muslims, the right to free expression "must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb."
The CPS is now seeking to reverse that decision 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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"For me, as the victim of Islamic terrorism, I cannot remain silent. I may be forced to flee the UK and move to the USA, where President Trump has stood for free speech and against Islamic extremism," he told the outlet.
"If I have to do so, then, to me, the UK will have effectively fallen to Islamism and the speech codes that it wishes to impose on the non-Muslim world," he added.
President Donald Trump and the U.S. administration have already criticized the U.K. and European governments over increased restrictions on expression.
In 2025, Trump slammed the U.K.'s laws around online speech, saying "strange things are happening" there and that it was "not a good thing."
At the Munich Security Conference in 2025, Vice President JD Vance also said, "In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat."
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Department of State for comment.