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The serial flusher responsible for two Koran toilet dunkings at Pace University has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 300 hours of community service. Stanislav Shmulevich, a Russian immigrant, was a business major at the time of the incidents, in which a copy of the Koran was twice discovered in the toilet – the first time "covered in feces" – in October and November 2006.
Shmulevich remained at large until last summer, when police connected him to surveillance footage outside a meditation room from which the Korans were stolen. He was initially charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. Shmulevich reportedly told detectives that "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."
Since the charge was plea-bargained down to disorderly conduct, Shmulevich’s lawyer was free to assert yesterday that “there was no hate crime here." Many conservative pundits wholeheartedly agreed; after all, it's not like Shmulevich desecrated a Bible or crucifix.
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Better question: If he had thrown his own Koran into his toilet would it be a crime at all?
Answer: No.
Lesson: Buy your own Koran.
Blatant disrespect of someone's religion is a hate crime- the intent was there!!! Absolutely reprehensible... so disgusted.
omgzz religizz intoleranzes running amok!
that sucks, but whatev.--bet this problem has plagued us since we became, well, us.
How can a hate crime be committed against a text? DUMB!
"Many conservative pundits wholeheartedly agreed; after all, it's not like Shmulevich desecrated a Bible or crucifix."
WTF ever! I dated a girl in high school who burned a Bible in class. Although punished by the school for disorderly conduct and creating a fire hazard, there were never any discussions on whether to press charges... and this was in the deep, dirty south (Macon, GA to be exact).
People the world over need to chill out when it comes to this shit. Peace may have a chance if all of the religious nuts were either silenced or learned a little bit of the humility and hubris that most of them teach.
P.S. If anyone really wants to argue semantics or think that I'm a jerk, 1) go f*** yourself, and 2) all crimes are hate crimes. If you don't believe me then ask yourself what rape is. White on white rape? Horrible, yet not so horrible as white on black rape. Again, WTF ever!
I gotta say I'm pretty amazed that this guy did what he did. Just plain stupid and insulting.
But a book is just a book. The ideas held in the words on it's pages existed before and they will survive this abuse. Assuming you believe in God and all that.
I understand that muslims consider their "book" sacred. But could the english lit department consider flushing a Dickens a crime.
Obscenity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
he should be put to death immediately!
Blatant disrespect of someone's religion is a hate crime-
ummm no, that's free speech.
his crime was in stealing and destroying someone else's property.
Nice cheap shot there at the end, John Del Signore.
Koran, Bible, whatever...doesn't seem like desecration of religious symbols (provided it doesn't involve destruction of others' property) is any business of the state.
So if the Klan uses their own cross, they're cool?
if you burn you flag that freedom. if you burn the flag at the post office you're going to jail.
I don't understand what's the big deal. Islamist terrorists have dumped more crap on the Koran than anyone else.
Yeah, if the Klan burns its own cross on its own property, then yes, in the eyes of law it's cool. If this guy had flushed his own Koran down his own toilet and then took a crap on it and posted pictures on his own Web site, it would be totally legal. He's only busted because he messed with other people's property.
"Blatant disrespect of someone's religion is a hate crime..."
That's stupid. It may be hate, but it's not a crime. Farrakahn is still walking around, isn't he?
I blantantly disrespect all religion.
Naughty by Nature: "You down with OPP?"
Shmulevich: "Yeah...you know me."
There are many problems with the hate crime laws, this being yet another illustrative example. While the intent of such legislation seems reasonable, the effect of having the thought police, victim, or prosecutor determine the mental state of the criminal actor is scary stuff. There is no benefit to enhancing a criminal act. Punish criminals for what wrong the did, not their thought.
"The legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions."
-Thomas Jefferson (detailing the separation of church and state)
Shmulevich. That's a name. A name that could have gone down in history as an eponym for creative disrepect of religion. All he need do is rearrange some of his misdeeds. Done correctly.
1) Take a Koran or Bible or Torah (non-scroll version)
2) On the inside pages, cut out the shape of beer bottle
3) Place feces in said cut out area
4) Close book and replace
We can call this "making a donation."
The only way to defeat religion and furthermore literature and/or gospel of one's religion is to shit on it. You know, like when burning it didn't work.
While I do think this could fairly be considered a hate crime, I don't think simple desecration is serious enough to make that matter. If it were a violent act, sure, but minor property destruction doesn't cut it.
6: I, for one, consider rape to be a hate crime against women. YMMV.
Is a male raped by a male not a hate crime? A young person robbing an elderly person is a hate crime. A smart person robbing an idiot is a hate crime. A bicycle thief has hatred. All crime involves hate; the victim by the perpetrator. Creating class or group victimization is absurd.
A hate crime?
Del Signore seems to to pick on "conservative" pundits, assuming they'd defend the Bible. But, notice he is silent about the City's hypocrisy.
Andre Serrano inserts a crucifix in a jar of urine and Chris Ofili surrounds a picture of Mary with pudenda and these are city-endorsed art! But, mess with the Koran and you've committed a hate crime!
Shmulevich should be punished for stealing. His actions provocatively showed disrespect for human beings who believe the Koran rather than the Koran. That's where he's wrong. But, should he be charged with a hate crime?
Maybe we all need to be a little more tolerant and considerate of what fellow human beings consider sacred.
Art, this is where I'd usually discuss rape culture and the dehumanization of women, but it's so far off from the subject of the post that I'm not going to get into it. It'll have to suffice to say that it's not an external force that creates class/group victimization when someone perpetrates a hate crime. It's that the criminal has chosen to abuse a member of a group because of his/her membership in that group. It is a victimization of the group, because that is the point.
Bruce, there's a massive difference between desecration of sacred objects for the purposes of tormenting and abusing believers who hold those objects sacred and desecration to serve an artistic purpose. How is that hypocritical?
hate crime? of course it is! this is a malicious act towards the poor guy who had to pick a shit smeared book out of a toilet.
Many conservative pundits wholeheartedly agreed; after all, it's not like Shmulevich desecrated a Bible or crucifix.
Unless you had the same problem with The Piss Christ or the Elephant Poo Mary, get over yourself.
Or was this guy's only mistake is that he didn't call it art, man?
Seemingly you all have not been on the rec'v end. of such hateful, harassing and offensive crimes. And they are indeed crimes - Crimes against Humanity. Let someone burn a cross, throw a moltov cocktail in your car, hang a noose outside your door, etc. Might not take to kindly to that. The intent was to send a message and was harassment. Lets be honest! What was the point , he had some words and felt like he need to retaliate in the most offensive way he could think off. Stop standing behind the bullshit and justifying the obvious.
Who really suffers here? The janitor. Unclogging a toilet stuffed with books is not easy. It's really a hate crime against custodians.
Religion of feces...
Jeez. I avoid this problem by wiping my ass with Gideon bibles. You're allowed to take them!
It's a 'crime' to throw a book into the toilet? One can actually be arrested to 'desecrating' a bible, a crucifix, a star of david, a qur'an?!
How about bringing back 'blasphemy' as a 'crime'- punishable by beheading of course.
And then of coure, there is the crime of 'talkin- loud-in-church' and 'not-eatin-chicken-on-sunday'!
Which bring me to the crime of 'flag burning'...
Jesse Califano TPA & NYC
"It's that the criminal has chosen to abuse a member of a group because of his/her membership in that group. It is a victimization of the group, because that is the point."
That entire paragraph is semantics, pure and simple. Like Art and I said, ALL crime is hate crime. ALL criminals choose to abuse members of certain groups because they see those people as helpless victims. The term 'hate crime' is redundant.
I know some people believe that manslaughter is not a hate crime because it usually involves people who are acquaintances, sometimes lovers. These same people seem to forget that hate is a part of love, not the opposite of it. Indifference is the opposite of love, and there's no such thing, at least defined by the judicial system, as 'indifferent crime'.
That entire paragraph is semantics, pure and simple. Like Art and I said, ALL crime is hate crime. ALL criminals choose to abuse members of certain groups because they see those people as helpless victims.
You're missing the point, and I think you're doing so deliberately. A thief who steals an improperly locked bicycle off the street isn't doing it because he wants to intimidate and dehumanize bike riders. He's doing it because he wants a bicycle, or wants to sell it. A thief who only targets members of a certain ethnic or religious group (or a certain gender, or sexual orientation, etc.) is deliberately targeting the group, not picking victims because he thinks they'll be easy marks.
"You're missing the point, and I think you're doing so deliberately."
I’m not missing the point, I just disagree. Crime is crime. Introducing emotions into a criminal case only serves the criminal, not the victim. Why the crime was committed should not matter. Murder is murder whether it was done hatefully or as a ‘crime of passion’ (manslaughter). Does the father of a girl that was killed care if the killer hated or loved his daughter? No! All he cares about is that the killer is punished.
There's a reason that Shakespeare suggested we kill all of the lawyers, and that's because they screw up the legal process with semantics.
the real question is, how do they know he shat on it versus, you know, eating it and then pooping it out? that would have a good defense argument right there.