An anti-niqab stunt at the Unite the Kingdom rally has exposed the sinister authoritarianism of the Islamo-left.
By: Hugo Timms
Published: May 18, 2026
For a brief moment on Saturday afternoon, a befuddled silence fell over the 60,000-strong crowd that had gathered in central London for the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally. Three women dressed in niqabs – the full Islamic dress that allows only a thin horizontal slit for seeing – emerged on stage. For a moment, confusion reigned in Parliament Square.
Needless to say, this was a stunt. One of those on stage encouraged the crowd to chant, ‘Take it off!’. Eventually, they did, revealing themselves to be three smiling young women.
The response to this public mockery of the burqa – a symbol of women’s subjugation by Islamist hardliners, let’s not forget – has been depressingly predictable. ‘No condemnation from our politicians, no action by the police’, fulminated Guardian journalist Owen Jones. ‘British Muslims are sent a clear message: you are fair game for hatred.’ TV personality Narinder Kaur complained that the stunt represented the ‘sexualisation and humiliation of brown women’, slamming ‘the public humiliation of one group of women by another group of women’. Another commentator called it ‘Islamophobia’. ‘As Muslims, we shouldn’t have to tolerate this in our home… England’, she wrote on X.
In their different ways, all of the above are essentially saying the same thing: we shouldn’t be allowed to poke fun at any aspect of Islam, not even its most extreme and misogynistic practices, such as covering up women from head to toe (which, as it happens, most Muslims around the world actually reject). We are never told why we aren’t allowed to mock or criticise such things – only that it is ‘hatred’, ‘humiliation’, something that should not be ‘tolerated’.
Fortunately, the police have not (at the time of writing) taken any action against the three young women involved in the stunt. This is a genuine relief, given that the authorities are usually eager to punish critics of Islam. After all, last year, a man was (unsuccessfully) prosecuted for burning a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in London. Meanwhile, Labour’s official ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ definition, introduced earlier this year, is an Islamic blasphemy code in all but name. So it is hardly a surprise that so many so-called progressives expected the police to take action.
Is this really what the left has been reduced to? Calling for critics of religious misogyny to be silenced, even arrested? The Islamo-left is a truly sinister force.
Moussa Kadri has been spared jail after attacking an anti-Islam activist with a knife.
By: Hugo Timms
Published: Sep 24, 2025
In central London in February, Turkey-born asylum seeker Hamit Coskun was attacked with a knife and violently assaulted. His assailant, Moussa Kadri, swung at him multiple times with a bread knife. ‘I’m going to kill you’, Kadri said, before kicking and spitting on Coskun as he fell to the ground. Yet it is the victim of this harrowing assault, not his attacker, who committed the more serious crime in the eyes of the English justice system. Because prior to being attacked, Coskun had burned a copy of the Koran.
If there were any doubt that the UK now has both a two-tier justice system and Islamic blasphemy laws, then the cases of Kadri and Coskun surely put this to rest.
Back in June, Coskun was convicted of a ‘religiously aggravated public-order offence’, after he burned the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in protest against Turkey’s President Erdoğan. In Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Coskun was found guilty and fined £240. Worse, the judge cited the knife attack and held it up as proof that Coskun’s Koran-burning had led to public disorder. Apparently, he had all but brought this violence on himself.
The contrast with Kadri’s treatment could not be more stark. In sentencing him yesterday at Southwark Crown Court, the judge bent over backwards to minimise the seriousness of the attack. Kadri, who pleaded guilty to common assault and possession of a bladed weapon, was spared jail. He was instead fined just £150 and handed a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months. The judge accepted he had merely lost his ‘temper and self-control’ as a result of being ‘deeply offended’.
The judge even saw fit to lavish praise on Kadri during the sentencing. Apparently, it was a ‘tragedy’ that he had ended up before the court despite leading such a productive life. He was a ‘loved husband and father’, a ‘hard worker’ and a man whose colleagues ‘cannot praise highly enough’, we were told.
The message sent by these two court decisions is chilling. The English justice system has made it clear that it will punish blasphemy against Islam. Worse, it considers physical violence – even slashing at someone with a knife – to be an almost understandable response to those who besmirch Islam’s honour. So much so that attacking a blasphemer attracts a smaller fine than the act of blasphemy itself.
The British justice system has taken a dark turn. It is not only criminalising those who blaspheme against Islam – it is also putting a target on their backs. It has given a green light to the use of violence to silence Islam’s critics. This cannot be allowed to stand in a secular, democratic country.
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A knife wielding Muslim man who attacked a free speech anti-Islamist anti-extremism protester who was burning a Quran outside the Turkish embassy has been let off, in my opinion, with a suspended sentence and community service hours.
Moussa Kadri who slashed at Hamit Coskun with a blade in broad daylight gets a measly 20 week suspended sentence. No jail time, just a bit of unpaid work and a few rehabilitation sessions.
Meanwhile, Coskun, who dared to exercise his free speech, is dragged through the courts, labeled a hate monger, and treated like a criminal for burning a book. The judge found Coskun guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offense in June, noting his actions in burning the Quran were highly provocative and that he was motivated, at least in part, by hatred of Muslims.
But in my view, it's very clear what the conviction of Coskun meant. The judiciary seems to want to introduce blasphemy laws with no vote in parliament through the back door specifically for Muslims. The attacker, Mr. Kadri, didn't just lose his temper, nor did he call the police. He came flying out of a building threatening to kill Mr. Coskun, shouting, "I'm coming back and I'm going to kill you now." He then went to grab a knife and slashed at Mr. Coskun repeatedly. He then proceeded to chase him down the street in Nightsbridge where Mr. Coskun fell to the floor and was repeatedly kicked and then spat on.
What do you think Mr. Kadri's reasoning for this was? Well, he told police, "I want to protect my religion." The judge told Mr. Kadri, "The knife could have caused serious injury, even if you never had any intention to stab him, your actions were wholly unacceptable. When armed with a knife, there is always a possibility of serious injury or death."
Well, after hearing that, you'd expect a tough line and punishment for Mr. Kadri, wouldn't you? No. The judge saw no reason for an immediate custodial sentence, having observed the mitigation and accepted his remorse. So there you have it. A dangerous knife wielding thug who threatens to kill somebody, violently attacks them in public all because they were offended, now will not see a minute behind bars.
Just remember Lucy Connelly only wrote a tweet. Yes, a tweet. Lord Toby Young of the Free Speech Union nailed it. He said this, "This sends a green light to any Muslim who wants to enforce an Islamic blasphemy by taking the law into their own hands."
Well, at his trial, Mr. Coskun argued that he had been protesting against the Islamist government of Erdigan, the president of Turkey, not individual followers of Islam. And the judge ordered Coskun, who fled his home country of Turkey two and a half years ago to escape persecution, to pay a fine of only £240 with a statutory charge of £96.
But let's talk about the knife crime epidemic while we're at it, shall we? Because the judge in Mr. Kadri's case had previously called the use of blades a curse on our communities. Yet here we are letting a man who wielded a knife in a vicious attack stroll out of court without a day behind bars. Over 50,000 knife crime offenses were recorded in England and Wales last year. And what do rulings like this show? They show that our spineless justice system is the most dangerous part of our society. And this ruling, in my very strong opinion, is the most dangerous ruling I've seen in Britain to date.
And do you know what I'm worried about coming next? And I'm sure you are at home, too. Islamophobia laws. An adviser to the attorney general has already warned a definition of Islamophobia could deter police from investigating Muslim offenders. Think about the impact it could have on activist judges and lawyers. There must be proper punishment for those who decide to attack another person with a knife in our country. Regardless of whether they are offended or not, it doesn't matter. Free speech and the right to peaceful protest, no matter how offensive it is to your religion or to your values, is part of British society and our culture.
Turkey’s furious crackdown on ‘blasphemers’ marks a sinister turn towards Islamic fundamentalism.
By: Hugo Timms
Published: Jul 3, 2025
A violent mob descended on the office of a small political magazine in Istanbul on Monday. A bar where its writers and staffers meet was vandalised. Its editor and three other staff have now been arrested and remanded in custody, too. No prizes for guessing the ‘crime’ perpetrated by LeMan in its most recent edition.
Those four journalists at LeMan, a satirical, left-wing weekly, are currently in jail for publishing a cartoon of what appears to be the prophet Muhammad on 26 June. Specifically, it shows ‘Muhammad’ shaking hands with ‘Moses’, in the sky, as missiles fly in opposite directions beneath them. The cartoon was supposed to celebrate the end of the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran (the cartoonists deny it depicts the prophet at all). Instead, it will almost certainly result in the magazine being outlawed, confirming Turkey’s status as an Islamic autocracy in all but name.
There is much to find disturbing in these events. Istanbul is Turkey’s most liberal city, and until recently was seen as one of the last bastions of a beleaguered Turkish secularism. Yet even here, the mob shouting ‘Tooth for tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge’ numbered in the hundreds. Certainly, it far outstripped those who were prepared to stand up for the right of freedom of expression. Further protests demanding punishment for LeMan and its staff broke out across the city in the days that followed.
Just as sickening has been the response of Turkey’s leaders. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to enjoy nothing more than jailing political opponents – a pleasure clearly enhanced when he can use the pretext of protecting his precious Islam. Following the arrests, he crowed about Le Man’s ‘vile provocation’ and its assault on Islam’s ‘sacred values’. ‘Those who show disrespect to our prophet and other prophets will be held accountable before the law’, he said. Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, proudly tweeted the arrest of the magazine’s director, who had ‘the audacity to depict our prophet’. The video shows an old man getting dragged out of his home by a gang of police officers.
Once, the jailing of journalists for the ‘crime’ of blasphemy in a nominally secular country, one that is a NATO member and aspiring to join the European Union, would have been met with condemnation in the West. Not today. UK foreign secretary David Lammy was even happy to tuck his legs under the same table as Erdoğan on Monday, not long after LeMan was purged by his police forces. Lammy obsequiously described Turkey as a ‘key NATO ally’ and a ‘strategic partner’ of the UK.
In fairness to Lammy, it would have been hypocritical for him to lecture Turkey’s autocrat on free speech and secularism. After all, only last month, a man was convicted for burning a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Hamit Coskun was prosecuted by the British authorities for essentially the same reason as those journalists in Turkey. It was to punish him for blasphemy against Islam.
Once uncorked, Islamic intolerance can be a very dangerous thing. And nothing, it seems, provokes quite as much outrage as political cartoons of the prophet. Just ask the surviving members of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, whose colleagues were slain over a Muhammad cartoon. Or ask the loved ones of the late French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, or the now exiled religious-studies teacher from Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, both of whom showed those Charlie Hebdo drawings as part of their lessons.
Every schoolboy eventually learns that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. Sadly, Western democracies – especially their supposedly ‘liberal’ elites – have often cowered when hotheads claiming to stand for the ‘religion of peace’ either demand censorship, resort to threats of violence or simply murder alleged blasphemers. By rewarding that intimidation, by caving in to Islamist demands, the West betrays moderate and secular voices in a religion that desperately needs them.
The ringing silence in the West over the LeMan arrests shows that we are repeating the same mistake. But it is never too late to stand up for free expression. The offending cartoon can be found here. Share it far and wide.
