The plight of Hatun Tash shames Britain

There is a Christian preacher, a woman, who has suffered the most heinous persecutions. She has been chased by mobs, arrested, unlawfully jailed and even stabbed. Where did this hellish hounding of a follower of Christ occur? Afghanistan, perhaps? Somalia maybe? Actually it was right here, in Britain.

Her name is Hatun Tash. She is an ex-Muslim originally from Turkey. She’s now a Christian convert and colourful street preacher. She regularly gave impromptu sermons at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, where she’s been known to hold up a desecrated copy of the Koran while spreading the word of Christ.

Her style is not to everyone’s taste, but so what? History is peppered with noisy, often millenarian ‘messengers of God’ who will have irked those who heard them. But that is no excuse for the horrendous abuse she has received. She’s been roughed up by mobs of young Muslim men.