Korans burned; hate crime eyed

The Washington Times ^ | 6-17-05 | WT

[JZelle]

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Police are investigating whether a hate crime took place when someone left a bag of burned Korans in front of an Islamic center. Members of the Islamic Center of Blacksburg were shocked when they arrived at the building for Saturday prayers and found a plastic shopping bag filled with burned copies of the Koran at the front door. "It is a shame that people are so ignorant," said Idris Adjerid, 20, a member of the center. Mr. Adjerid told the Roanoke Times that he has attended the center since 1997 and nothing like this has happened before. Blacksburg police Lt. Donnie Goodman reported the incident to the Virginia State Police, which compiles hate crime statistics. But he said the department is not sure whether the Koran burning is a hate crime. For the incident to be considered a hate crime, police must be able to show that the act was meant to intimidate or harass, he said. Kevin Foust, the agent in charge of the Roanoke FBI office, said yesterday that his office is helping in the investigation. He declined to speculate whether the incident would be classified as a hate crime under state or federal law. Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes nationally, said he doubts the incident would be considered a crime. "I think it amounts to a biased incident as opposed to an actual crime," he said. "It was certainly intended as an act of hatred toward Muslims, but you can burn a stack of Bibles and what are they going to do about it?" Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, questioned how police could consider the act anything other than a hate crime.

[OldFriend]

WTC pictures are in order on this thread.

[inquest]

Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes nationally, said he doubts the incident would be considered a crime. "I think it amounts to a biased incident as opposed to an actual crime," he said.

Well this seems like a new twist. Previously, "hate crimes" were just considered an aggravated version of ordinary crimes. But now we have something that normally wouldn't even be considered criminal at all, being a potential "hate crime" if the people doing it had the wrong thoughts in mind when doing it.

[YOUGOTIT]

It is art, or free speech. Just like the urine in the communion cup by the sodomites in New York. It was not considered a crime at all when they urinated in the communion cup, but an act that showed Christians were bad people.

[possumdawg]

How can Democrats link this to Gitmo,President Bush and Republicans? I am sure Durbin, Dean and Conyers will find a memo or something.

[DB]

What a waste of taxpayer resources...

---

Hey, maybe there was a book store fire and the these were dropped off so they could be properly restored...

[pepperhead]

I think this guy should be happy that it wasn't a burning bag of crap that was left on his door.

[DaiHuy]

Well as far as the Muslims go

"Oderint dum metuant"

Roughly, let them hate, as long as they fear.

[SpinnerWebb]

So, fine them for incineration of garbage without a permit, and let them be on their way.

[dead]

If you bought it, you can burn it. Koran, flag or bible.

[Duke Nukum]

Nope, that wasn't a hate crime. The hate crime was what happens in the media every day. Burning a koran is actually mild. Saying burning korans is a hate crime is like saying lining the bird cage with the NY Times is a hate crime.

Islam, now that's a hate crime.

[txhurl]

What'd really get 'em crazy is footage of some midwest farmer tearing pages out of the koran, wrapping bacon around them and feeding them to his pigs.

[Elpasser]

OK, someone tell me how you make this into a crime.

If the burner owned the korans, are you telling me he cannot lawfully burn them?

Is our justice system completely nuts nowadays?

[Random Nonsense]

As if we are to believe that non-muslims did such act.

Who would have thought that the muslims did this themselves to gather sympathy. Soon enough CAIR would announce islamophobia, and inter-faith discussion should be conducted in the neighborhood.

There are no moderate muslims. If you had to differentiate between the jihadists and moderate muslims, here is: the jihadists wanted the power now, on the other hand, moderate muslims would wait until they get enough leverage and take over.

islam domination is their goal. Even the co-founder of CAIR Omar Ahmad said it:

.. "Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." ..

[Publius6961]

Police are investigating whether a hate crime took place when someone left a bag of burned Korans in front of an Islamic center.

Absolutely not true. The stupid reporter asked if it would be investigated as a hate crime and the response was, "I won't speculate on that".

That answer is more diplomatic than "Are you effing nuts?", but it allowed misrepresenting and distorting the facts.

[FormerACLUmember]

The democrat party has coerced the federal government to fund the so-called art of 1) "paintings" of Mary, the mother of Jesus, made out of feces and 2) "Piss Christ," a crucifix swimming in urine.

Surely this is simply performance art.

And let's not forget that bibles are seized, desecrated and burned in Saudi Arabia at all times, by law.

[Bar-Face]

HooBoy! This ranks right up there with lynching and cross burnings. I wonder if the Justice Dept has been called in. This is horrible. I cannot believe this happened on the streets of any town in America.

Oops! I just read the entire article. I just glanced at the headline and I thought that was Koreans Burned.

Korans, I don't give a rat's patoot about no stinking Korans

[FormerACLUmember]

The Saudi government burns and desecrates hundreds of bibles its security forces confiscate after raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately or at border crossings.



As a matter of official policy, the government either incinerates or dumps bibles, crosses and other Christian paraphernalia.

Hundreds of Christian worshipers are arrested every year by Saudi police in raids on their private gatherings. Bibles, crosses and printed materials are confiscated and later burnt or dumped into trash. Bibles and other Christian paraphernalia found with travelers into the country are confiscated and destroyed.

Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Koran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia, and is confiscated and destroyed by government officials.

Recently, there has been a crackdown on symbols of Christianity in Saudi Arabia. On April 21st Saudi authorities raided a make-shift church in Riyadh and arrested 40 Christians. Many Christian religious symbols, such as crucifixes and bibles were later destroyed by Saudi security forces.

[BallyBill]

Thank God I can't get charged for "Hate Thought".

[Tennessee_Bob]

My church (Disciples of Christ) burned down at the end of last year. It was first termed "suspicious," then finally determined to be an arson. But on one - not the FBI who investigated it, nor the papers that reported it mentioned the term "Hate Crime."

It's a fairly quiet, 99% white, conservative church - reckon that had anything to do with it?