A man arrested for throwing a copy of the Quran in a public toilet.

[ThaG]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--vandalismquran0727jul27,0,6882662.story

NEW YORK (AP) _ 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.

In 2005, Newsweek magazine published and later retracted a story claiming U.S. interrogators at a prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a copy of the holy book down a toilet. The report sparked deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan and protests throughout the Middle East.

Pace University has 14,000 students on its campuses in New York City and Westchester County.

Messages left for school administrators and for officials with the New York and national chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations were not immediately returned Friday evening.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the national CAIR office in Washington, D.C., has said the organization receives frequent reports of Quran desecrations in the United States, especially postings on Internet sites, but seldom makes them public.

He said CAIR decided to speak out about the Pace incidents because Muslim students are impacted by the creation of what could be viewed as a hostile campus environment.

 

[nhojsmith]

he should just decapitate people that dont have the same religious views as him...

this was in ny, what do you expect. those people have been bent over begging for mercy since 2001. they are scared and they know they will be bombed again, but they are trying to deter the inevitable. terrorism seems a fitting word. christians dont have the stomach for war these days, and in that sense, its a far weaker religion than islam.

 

[ThaG]

But what if you do the same with another book (except the bible)??

If I do the same with my copy of Molecular Cell Biology, will I get arrested??

We started loving books so much we punish people for flushing the toilet with them or what??

 

[WHITE DEVIL]

It isnt fair.

Life isnt fair.

Muslims keep their women in burqas and womens rooms, kill broads who have been raped for cheating, bitch about the Quran being fucked with, and have violent demonstrations when they are called violent.

Life goes on.

 

[nhojsmith]

But what if you do the same with another book (except the bible)??

If I do the same with my copy of Molecular Cell Biology, will I get arrested??

We started loving books so much we punish people for flushing the toilet with them or what??

you know exactly whats going on. they are pandering to islam out of a fear of retribution and violence. just like they sold out freedom of speech with the mohammad cartoons. and if its working for certain muslims to use these tactics, then i dont blame them for continuing their actions. go with what works. chop a head off here, kidnap there, and you have already sent over half of america running away crying like bitches begging and denying the crowds of thousands chanting death to america even exist. in fact, if you saw enough heads off, you can get the american people to blame religious extremism and suicide bombings in israel on their own government! outstanding!

 

[Dhadnot]

who gives a fuck we killed so many more muslims than they have killed Americans. We go and destablize their countries for centuries and shit, put in puppet gov., and get paid, so I dont think we are all that a scared pussy country unless you mean we wont fight on their level.

 

[nhojsmith]

who gives a fuck we killed so many more muslims than they have killed Americans. We go and destablize their countries for centuries and shit, put in puppet gov., and get paid, so I dont think we are all that a scared pussy country unless you mean we wont fight on their level.

9/11 was estimated to have cost roughly $500,000. we have spent almost $500,000,000,000 on the wars in iraq and afghanistan. that means we have spent almost a million times more money. the US is sharply divided. radical islam is as united as ever and has more sympathizers than ever. the US image on the world stage has been shattered. the US public has shown that it does not have the stomach for war, osama bin laden has stated this, yet bush stays engaged. bush is then labled as the terrorist. i dont think our country as a whole is pussy, or the government. i think the public is pussy and would rather watch harry potter sequels than acknowledge that a new era of global terrorism has been established. the pieces have been in place for decades. the good old days will not return just because we pull out of iraq and a liberal is elected in 2008. the ball is in motion. americans as a whole are still arrogant enough to think we are the only ones capable of playing.

 

[ParkBoyz]

Actually, as much as I believe this person should have been slapped and kicked in the balls, getting arrested for throwing a book (I don't care what kind of book) in the toilet is indeed, by law nothing more than vandalism. Or it should be.. And that's vandalism to the toilet, if you own the book, you can do whatever you please with what you purchased, including throwing it away. This goes against freedom of expression and the separation of church and state.. It may be a demonstration of hate, but calling it a "hate crime" is an overstatement.

As an alternative, I say just kick this person's ass and call it a day. Since this was a vile and disrespectful act, they deserve at least hospital injuries..

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Hate crime? That's fucking retarded. Vandalism maybe, like Parkboyz said, but definitely not a hate crime.

I've burned quite a few Bibles in my day - some for entertainment purposes others because I needed rolling paper to smoke with - all of the times though they were My bibles that I had acquired various different ways, besides the ones at Hotels, which I do believe you are free to take if you wish.

If someone wants to destroy a bible or the Koran or the AmeriKan flag, then so be it. It's their right to do so!

 

[SecondzAway]

Hate crime? That's fucking retarded. QUOTE]

I agree, It seems like weve taken away people's right to dislike something for no other reason than they don't like it,you,them...etc etc.