Outrageous: Sharia Law in New York

Completely, utterly, outrageous: Sharia law has now taken precedence in New York.

LGF reports (and follows up on) the story (with a hat tip to Purple Wombats) of Stanislav Shmulevich, who was arrested on felony counts of aggravated harassment and criminal mischief, for throwing a Koran into a toilet at Pace University. From the wire story:

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 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.

Yes, you read that correctly: two felony counts, aggravated harassment and criminal mischief - classified as hate crimes - for throwing a Koran in the toilet.

According to this story, Stanislav was caught by a security camera as he was leaving a (Muslim) meditation room where the Korans were stored.

This incident is clearly a First Amendment, free speech and establishment challenge, and reeks of involvement by CAIR.

As has been pointed out in the LGF comments, burning the American flag, displaying a crucifix in a vat of urine, and displaying a painting of Mary covered in dung are all considered forms of protected religious or political speech. Flushing a Koran, however, is now considered a hate crime.

Here are the New York Penal code definitions of aggravated harassment (First Degree, Second Degree) and Criminal Mischief (First Degree, Second Degree, Third Degree, Fourth Degree).

Granted, I'm no lawyer, but the felony escalation of the criminal mischief charge appears to be specious, and the aggravated harassment appears not to apply whatsoever. On the former charge, no explosive was used (first degree, class B felony), the Koran was not worth $1,500 (second degree, class D felony), and the Koran was not worth $250 (third degree, class E felony). At best, Stanislav committed a class A misdemeanor (fourth degree).

On the latter charge, Stanislav neither communicated with a person via phone or any form of written communication nor physically touched a person (second degree, clauses 1-3, class A misdemeanor), nor did he damage premises used primarily for religious purposes (first degree, class E felony). That no actions (spoken or written communication, or physical contact) were directed at any person, the "hate crime" provision of the first degree charge is irrelevant.

If you value your freedoms as an American, you had better be absolutely outraged at what is happening here.

Personally, it makes me want to go buy a Koran, wrap it in bacon, throw it on the glowing charcoal of my Weber, and douse the charred remains in the toilet - and then post a picture so the intolerant, fascist scum at CAIR and elsewhere can choke on it.

After all, as has been pointed out on various comments threads:

The Koran is itself a hate crime against Jews and Christians.

Amen!

More coverage from Digg, Hot Air, Jawa Report, Texas Hold 'Em, UrbanGrounds, Deep Thoughts, Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar, Riehl World View, JustOneMinute, Saber Point, Israel Matsav (twice), Relapsed Catholic, Dog Opus, 186K Per Second, Never Ye Melted, Hindu-Jewish-Christian Rightwing Conspiracy.