Flush the Koran, do not pass go, go straight to jail?

 

UPDATES:

Little Green Footballs says Bill O’Reilly is “squarely on the wrong side”, as he “came out in favor of charging Stanislav Shmulevich with felony hate crimes for putting a Koran in a toilet.”  I have to admit, I missed The O’Reilly Factor tonight but trust LGF to have understood O’Reilly correctly.  Man!  Fox needs to turn that into The Malkin Factor and retire O’Reilly, if he has gone that far off his rocker.  She has been guest-hosting a lot here lately.  Maybe they have something in the works?

Video at HotAir asks, “Should Stanislav Shmulevich face felony hate crimes charges?”.  And, the answer to that is no.  Misdemeanor charges for vandalism or theft, since it appears to have been school property from the school’s meditation room but not felonies.  HotAire also has some interesting examples of offensive representations which did not result in felony charges. 

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H/T Michelle Malkin.

It would seem that a 23 year old Pace University student by the name of Stanislav Shmulevich faces possible jail time for felony charges related to chunking the Koran in the toilet. 

A 23-year-old man was arrested Friday on hate-crime charges after he threw a Quran in a toilet at Pace University on two separate occasions, police said.

Stanislav Shmulevich of Brooklyn was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment, both hate crimes, police said. It was unclear if he was a student at the school. A message left at the Shmulevich home was not immediately returned.

The Islamic holy book was found in a toilet at Pace’s lower Manhattan campus by a teacher on Oct. 13. A student discovered another book in a toilet on Nov. 21, police said.

Muslim activists had called on Pace University to crack down on hate crimes after the incidents. As a result, the university said it would offer sensitivity training to its students.

The school was accused by Muslim students of not taking the incident seriously enough at first. Pace classified the first desecration of the holy book as an act of vandalism, but university officials later reversed themselves and referred the incident to the New York Police Department’s hate crimes unit.

The incidents came amid a spate of vandalism cases with religious or racial overtones at the school. In an earlier incident on Sept. 21, the school reported another copy of the Quran was found in a library toilet, and in October someone scrawled racial slurs on a student’s car at the Westchester County satellite campus and on a bathroom wall at the campus in lower Manhattan. Police did not connect Shmulevich to those incidents.

Treatment of the Quran is a sensitive issue for Muslims, who view the book as a sacred object and mistreating it as an offense against God. The religion teaches that the Quran is the direct word of God.

Little Green Footballs has more on this story, after talking with Shmulevich.  As LGF notes, “This is not over.”

Allahpundit has the legal roundup on this case with the possible statutes in question.  Now, at least two questions come to mind for me, after reading Allah’s review.  First, just how much does a Koran cost?  From the statutes that Allahpundit has found, the Koran cost has to exceed $250 for the lesser offense or $1,500 for the greater of the two.  That would be one expensive book of Allah’s word.  Anybody know the going price on a Koran?  Secondly, how can the burden of proof be so low on the aggravated assault charge.  All they have to do is say they were annoyed, threatened or alarmed.  Yikes!  Talk about the P.C. Police!  I would like to see Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit weigh in on the constitutionality of this.

Phil Orenstein at The Democracy Project offers some sound advice to Shmulevich.

As this news story unfolds, Stanislav Shmulevich, whether a student of Pace or not, should seek legal representation to overturn this outrageous violation of his constitutional rights. There is no right in a democracy not to be offended although the threats and bullying tactics of CAIR and MSA have forced the hand of Pace administrators and New York’s Police Department to do their sinister bidding.

But, Phil also notes a double-standard at Pace.

The other incidents “with racial or religious overtones” at Pace University were swastikas painted on a bathroom wall and on a Holocaust memorial event poster, the desecration of a Menorah on campus and other vicious antisemitic attacks which never rose to the level of hate crime, nor should they so along as burning the American flag is free speech and the photograph Piss Christ was the winner of “Awards in the Visual Arts” competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. However, this demonstrates clear evidence of a double standard lurking at Pace, throughout academia and trickling down throughout the body politic where Muslims and certain identity groups get preferential treatment while others are spurned.

Dr. Bostom at New English Review weighs into the issue and gives us a history lesson on Koran desecration stories.

Others posting on this topic: 

Bill’s Bites / Moonbattery  / jCircadian / Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar / BUUUUURRRRNING HOT / Sunday Overnight · New York Articles / Spontaneous Order / Weblogs / Toms FlashBacks / Toms FlashBacks / Full Metal Cynic / The Shot! @ shotpolitics.com / The Saloon dot net / Hyscience / Pajamas Media / Crush Liberalism / Crush Liberalism /Right Wing Nut House / Crimes (Politik – Page 3) / Buttle’s World / The American Pundit / southchild.