Alleged Quran 'hate crime'

Gotta love how things come around...

Published on July 6, 2005 By ShadowWar In War on Terror

Flagged by Islamic groups as a probable hate crime, a burned Quran found at the doorstep of a Virginia mosque turned out to be a case of a Muslim who wasn't sure how to properly dispose of his religion's sacred book.

Last month, members of the Islamic Center of Blacksburg said they were stunned when they arrived at the building for prayers and found a plastic shopping bag in front of the door filled with a charred copy of the Quran and the burnt pages of Arabic books, the Roanoke Times reported.

Police said they were investigating it as a possible hate crime but emphasized they had no leads.

Nevertheless, shortly after the initial report, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee in Washington, D.C., questioned how police could consider the act anything other than a hate crime.

"Let's face it, books don't burn themselves and end up outside of a mosque. It's a willful act," Laila Al-Qatami told the Roanoke paper.

Al-Qatami said hate crimes against Muslims have increased steadily since 9-11 and spike whenever a national anti-Muslim act is covered by the media.

Recent reports of Quran desecration have set off copy-cat acts across the country, she said.

The most widely-dispersed allegation, by Newsweek, actually was retracted. The magazine had said interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention center placed copies of the Quran on toilets to torture Muslim inmates and in one case flushed one down the toilet. The false report was believed to have set off deadly protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza City.

But in the Virginia case, local police reported yesterday that a Muslim Virginia Tech student said he left the Quran at the local mosque because it had been damaged in a fire and he hoped it could be given a respectful disposal.

The student, whose name was not released, contacted police last week, saying he planned to travel abroad and didn't know what to do with the Quran, which had been burned in a 2004 house fire, the Times reported.

The student said he left an explanatory note with the bag, but it blew away.

But they sure wanted to jump to conclusions didn't they! It had to be a hate crime, didn't it! Of course it was, why else would it be so.

I am so tired of this crap about the Quran and the Muslim Community crying every time someone lloks at a Quran wrong, puts it to close to a toliet,(where I do some of my best reading..LOL) or lets the room temp get to high for the book. Where are the news reports of the Muslims killing in the name of their religion? Thats a hate crime isn't it? I am working on what may be my definitive article on all these issues that are goingon in the world right now. I may have to make installments. And I am sure it will piss a lot of people, but I am past giving a flying leap about it.

Comments

Island Dog

on Jul 06, 2005

Remember, islam is a protected "religion" in the U.S. A few more months and we will see the attack on Christians heat up once again as Christmas approaches.

MasonM

on Jul 06, 2005

I really don't see how destroying a book could possibly be construed as a hate crime. It's a book!
Now, if they found a burned Muslim, that's a different story.

Island Dog

on Jul 06, 2005

You'd think that littering might be a valid charge, but hate crime?

I told you, islam is a protect religion. The aclu and the liberals have made it as such.

bakerstreet

on Jul 06, 2005

"I really don't see how destroying a book could possibly be construed as a hate crime. It's a book!"

The same way burning a cross is considered a hate crime, "ethnic intimidation". It's moronic, don't get me wrong, but if someone who ties two sticks together and lights them is a criminal, then someone who lights a Koran, or a Bible, for that matter, had better be too.

I'm sick of it. A book is paper and binding. A cross is a couple of pieces of wood. A flag is a piece of cloth. As long as we are trying to pass laws protecting political or cultural "idols", like the flag, then we don't need to pick and choose.

Time to stop validating this kind of thing by pretending the flag is somehow holier than a "holy" book. When we do, we give precendent to people who want to do stuff like this.

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