Blasphemy

The prosecution of a man for burning a Quran "evokes the notion of blasphemy", a barrister has said. Akua Reindorf KC has said the charge against Hamit Coskun, who in February burnt a Quran outside the Turkish Consulate in London, is "plainly defective".

Dr Felicity Loughlin, lecturer in the history of modern Christianity at Edinburgh University, writes about Scotland’s last persecution for blasphemy as a criminal offence, and what this can tell us about changing attitudes towards religion and free speech in the Victorian age. In 1837, a