a double felony for putting a koran in a toilet?

[gardenweasel]

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. "





first,stanislav shmulevich was arrested and jailed for 24 hours.......
second, he’s not facing misdemeanor charges—he’s being charged with two felonies, criminal mischief and aggravated harassment.....

felonies....for putting a book in a toilet?....

i`ll be curious to see where the aclu comes down on this one...

this guy`s photo`s already been published in the newspapers...obviously putting himself and his family at risk.....

he`s a moron...but,this is ridiculous....do we still have a country that values freedom of speech and expression?....

obviously,only in certain cases....

 

[IntenseOperator]

How Christians Are Treated In Muslim Land


Saudi Arabia - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death. Bibles are illegal. Churches are illegal. Easter celebrations are illegal. It is punishable by death for a non-mulsim to enter the ?holy? muslim cities of Medina and Mecca.

Yemen - Bans proselytizing by non-Muslims and forbids conversions. The Government does not allow the building of new non-Muslim places of worship.

Kuwait - Registration and licensing of religious groups. Members of religions not sanctioned in the Koran may not build places of worship. Prohibits organized religious education for religions other than Islam.

Egypt - Islam is the official state religion and primary source of legislation. Accordingly, religious practices that conflict with Islamic law are prohibited. Muslims may face legal problems if they convert to another faith. Requires non-Muslims to obtain what is now a presidential decree to build a place of worship.

Algeria - The law prohibits public assembly for purposes of practicing a faith other than Islam. Non-Islamic proselytizing is illegal, and the Government restricts the importation of non-Islamic literature for distribution. The country has passed the ?Regulation of Religious Practice? law, which stipulates a punishment of two to five years? imprisonment and heavy fines for anyone convicted of urging a Muslim to change his religion.

Syria - The constitution requires the president to be a Muslim and specifies that Islamic jurisprudence is a principal source of legislation. Sharing your Christian faith is discouraged as ?posing a threat to the relations among religious groups? and carries a penalty of up to life in prison. A Christian is not allowed to proselytize ? ever. Churches who want to hold an extra service must get a government permit. Sermons are routinely monitored, as is church fundraising.

Jordan - Has the death penalty for any Muslim selling land to a Jew.

Sudan - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death.

Pakistan - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death. Bans proselytizing by non-Muslims. Christians regularly put in prison for charges of blasphemy. Islam is the state religion, and in a court of law the testimony of a Christian carries less weight than that of a Muslim. Section 295(c) of the Penal Code calls for a death sentence for anyone who defiles the name of the Prophet Muhammad and requires the testimony of four Muslims for a conviction. This fosters an environment in which Muslims can feel free to use intimidation and violence against religious minorities for personal gain. Also, if any criminal Muslim rape with any Christian female and then take plea that she has accepted Islam and marry with him. Such person is not culpable under Pakistani criminal law

Qatar - Islamic instruction is compulsory in public schools. The government regulates the publication, importation, and distribution of non-Islamic religious literature. The government continues to prohibit proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims.

Malaysia - Under Malaysian law, any convert to Christianity must apply to a shariah (Muslim law) court to legally renounce Islam. Many Christians prefer to remain silent converts rather than take their battle to the shariah courts, where apostasy or conversion out of Islam is punishable by whipping, fines, imprisonment and?in the most extreme application?death. In a country where Muslims account for more than half of the population, conversion from Islam is punished with a 5-year prison sentence and a $3,000 fine. A Malaysian Muslim who marries a non-Muslim and who converts the non-Muslim to Islam is rewarded with an apartment, a car, a one-time payment of $2,700, and a monthly stipend of $270.

The Maldives - In the island paradise visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year, Christianity is simply not tolerated. While local Christians ? said to number around 300 out of a total population of 300,000 ? do get together to worship, they do so at the risk of imprisonment or worse if discovered by the Muslim authorities. Bibles are banned, and tourists can be arrested for trying to bring them into the country.


(think I got it from a "wackie" forum)