My name is Hamit Coskun, and I’ve just been convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offense. My “crime”? Burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Moments later, I was attacked by a man in full view of the street. I was hospitalized. Then I was arrested.
Some may say that book burning is a poor substitute for reasoned debate. I would counter that it was a symbolic, nonviolent form of expression intended to draw attention to the ongoing move from the secularism of my country of birth to a regime that embraces hard-line Islam.
