The Trump administration is considering intervening in the case of a protester fined for burning a Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London, as British prosecutors seek to reinstate his overturned conviction, according to reports.
Officials are reportedly discussing granting 51-year-old Hamit Coskun refugee status if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) succeeds in its appeal, with a senior U.S. administration official stating the case is among several “the administration has taken notice of.”
Coskun, of Armenian-Kurdish heritage, originally sought asylum in the U.K. from Turkey, where he claims his family’s life was “destroyed” and where he was imprisoned for protesting Islamist rule.
On February 13, 2025, he went to the Turkish Consulate in London and burned a copy of the Quran while chanting slogans such as “Islam is [the] religion of terrorism” and “f— Islam.”
There, he was assaulted by Moussa Kadri, a bystander who pursued him with a knife, kicked him, and spat on him.
Kadri subsequently received a suspended jail term after being found guilty of assault and possessing a bladed weapon in public.
Originally charged with harassing the “,” Coskun’s case attracted involvement from the National Secular Society and the Free Speech Union, who contended that prosecutors were effectively resurrecting blasphemy laws that had been abolished in 2008.
Coskun was convicted of a and fined in June 2025.
That October, Coskun’s when a judge determined 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 at London’s High Court, with Coskun telling The Telegraph that if the appeal rules against him, he may be compelled “to flee” the country.
“For me, as a victim of Islamic terrorism, I cannot stay silent. I may be forced to flee the UK and relocate to the USA, where President Trump has championed free speech and opposed Islamic extremism,” he told the publication.
“If I must do so, then, in my view, the UK will have effectively succumbed to Islamism and the speech codes it seeks to impose on the non-Muslim world,” he added.
President and the U.S. administration have already censured the U.K. and European governments over heightened restrictions on expression.
In 2025, Trump criticized the U.K.’s laws regarding online speech, stating “strange things are happening” there and that it was “not a good thing.”
At the Munich Security Conference in 2025, Vice President also stated, “In Britain and across Europe, , I fear, is in retreat.”
Digital has contacted the Department of State for comment.