A Christian apologist who was arrested twice by London police while preaching at London’s Speaker’s Corner has been given an apology and a financial settlement.
Hatun Tash, a former Muslim who is now a Christian speaker sharing the gospel with Muslim background people, spends plenty of time preaching and debating the Qur’an and Islam at the famed outdoor space. She was first arrested in December 2020 and again in May 2021.
“In the first instance, Tash was assaulted, abused and harassed by a group of Islamic men for wearing a t-shirt featuring a picture of Muhammad while participating in weekly debates, according to the Christian Legal Centre, which represents Tash,” according to a report in The Christian Post.
“When officers asked the group to leave, they refused and continued to intimidate Tash, as was seen in a video. The officers then requested Tash to leave, and when she refused, they arrested her.”
In the second instance, officers cited COVID-19 regulations to detain Tash after she encouraged officers not to hinder another preacher’s right to free speech, according to the Christian Post.
Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable. Give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you will receive a copy of “Hurt and Healed by the Church” by Ryan George. To donate, click here.
In July 2021 she was stabbed on her hand and face by a young man while debating with a Muslim at the corner.
According to UK newspaper The Daily Mail, Detective Superintendent Alex Bingley (Central West Command Unit), said: “This was clearly a very distressing incident for the woman involved and officers have spent time with her, whilst she was being treated for her injury, to get an account of what happened.”
“I am upset and disturbed by what has happened to me,” Tash said after being arrested in July 2021. “I am asking myself if I have done anything wrong. I am convinced I have not broken any law or incited hate. All I did was question Islam and I wanted to debate, discuss and to tell people about Jesus Christ.”
“Police inaction has led to what happened to me. My attacker was not even afraid of the police as he did it right in front of them. It is heart-breaking that we live in a society where police do not want to arrest a Muslim for fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’.”
In his apology letter, Insp Andy O’Donnell from the London Metropolitan Police, says he has investigated her complaints of being mistreated by police. He says he has concluded “that on these occasions the level of service did fall below the requisite standard.”
Tash was awarded £10,000 ($11,275 US) and has donated the award to the Christian Legal Centre in London who has represented her.
O’Donnell apologized to Tash “for the distress that you have suffered as a consequence of these incidents. I hope that settlement of this claim and this recognition of the impact of what happened will enable you to put these incidents behind you.”
This article has been reprinted with permission from CHVN Radio.
Journalist Mike Thom is program director at CHVN in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
English 
Spanish
5 Responses
“All I did was question Islam and I wanted to debate, discuss and to tell people about Jesus Christ.”
Not really. I agree that Tash has the right to say what she likes at Speaker’s Corner and anyone who attacks her should be arrested and prosecuted, but the fact that she wears tee shirts with images of Mohammed and Charlie Hebdo, and often carries a Quran with holes punched clean through it is clearly calculated to cause offense to the Muslims who walk through the area every day.
If all she really wanted to do is tell people about Jesus Christ, there is absolutely no reason to provoke Muslims by deliberately trashing the things they hold sacred. Indeed, given how counterproductive it surely is, it’s enough to suspect that her real motivations are somewhat different to those advertised.
As David Wood has shown, and my street experience attests, if a Muslim wants to have a discussion, we can discuss; but this is vanishingly rare. By their doctrines we are lesser people, to be despised, enslaved and killed. The sure fire way to get past this barrier is to be directly honest about their false prophet and his paedophilic lusts. The craziness of their book and hadith also need to be routinely exposed.
I will note that apparently this woman, a “Christian” “apologist”, literally drilled holes in a copy of the Holy Qu’ran.
She sounds like she’s really standing up for Jesus and getting persecuted for it, poor thing.
I agree with Mike. There’s a way to stand up for Jesus and spread the gospel without being deliberately disrespectful. Rarely does someone come to Christ – or even listen to what one has to say about Christ – through being intentionally disrespected and provoked to anger. I mean, how many people have walked by a street pastor yelling “You’re all going to hell!” and turned around wanting to hear more about Christ? How many have been so “moved” by seeing the outrageously offensive signs and protests from Westboro church that they were like “yeah, I want to be part of THAT!”
Or imagine if a Muslim were trying to evangelize by drilling holes in the Bible?
I believe she is being provocative and playing the martyr for attention.
I have read multiple articles on her. I believe she is a true minister of the gospel. Check out the article written by her in “The Spectator”. It explains her reasoning behind what she does. The U. S. is following close on Britain’s heels in regards to freedom of speech. This woman is as bold as a lion. Something we need to be challenged by if we are going to survive as Christians for another generation in the U.S.