CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. The F-B-I will look into an online video that shows two men shooting a Quran with a military rifle and then leaving the bullet-riddled holy book at a Chattanooga mosque. F-B-I agent Tim Burke said the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Justice Department to investigate the incident. He said no one from the Chattanooga Muslim community had complained.
You've got to be kidding. Maybe CAIR hasn't heard about free speech, but I would have thought that the FBI would have.
Justice Department spokesman Eric Holland said the request would be reviewed carefully.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Islamic group, said the video may have been recorded in Chattanooga a year ago.
That's the same Ibrahim Hooper that once said, "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.
The video shows the man purchasing a Quran at a bookstore, going to a wooded area and shooting the book, then throwing it on the ground outside the door of the Chattanooga Islamic center. http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=5133866&nav=3HvE
It's so hard to keep these things straight. So you can burn the American Flag, but if you fill a Quran full of lead you're going to be investigated by the FBI? What exactly would be the charge? One count of being rude and offensive?
I think that the FBI should have explained to the CAIR people that they're in America now and in this country we have the God-given freedom to buy books and shoot them. Instead the Bureau panders to CAIR's outrage, empowers them, and sets a very bad precedent. What a bunch of pathetic PC idiots.
8 comments:
I heard about this while on vacation and debated about posting it or vacation pictures. It was big news in the Carolinas, page 2 in the Elizabeth City News paper. My daily whine-o-gram issued a press release but I opted to focus on vacation blogging. It looks like those "good ol' boys" down there aren't going along with the shake down from the "muslim civil right group".
The CAIR email said they wanted the FBI to investigate because this is "clearly a hate crime" and a "civil right" may have been violated, even though no muslims complained or was offended.
CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar said "we believe the perpetrators went beyond the limits of free speech by taking part in an overt act of religious intimidation". Iftikhar also said the men's actions may have violated provisions of federal civil rights statutes. He cited Title 18, United States Code, Section 241, "Conspiracy Against Civil Rights," which makes it a crime to "conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States."
They sure know how to use our laws and rights against us!
After reading your quote from Title 18 I can see the basis for their complaint. But by no stretch of the imagination is this act any more than a dramatization of the fact that this person does not like Muslims and what they have done throughout the world. He should be free as an American to hold this belief and express it in a non-violent way.
It really annoys me that the FBI would legitimate CAIR's complaint.
Could this Title 18 be applied to the desecration of the American flag as well?
Chuck,
Your guess is as good or better than mine, but I'm guessing that CAIR's lawyers were saying that what this man did was meant to intimidate a minority or a religious group.
Burning the flag wouldn't single-out a group. But like with the Quran shooting, it's using an object to make a political statement.
Your take?
I'm not sure about shooting the Quran, but I'm thinking about taking a jackhammer to "It Takes A Village." Any thoughts?
Andrew,
Tell you what... You bring "It Takes a Village" and I'll bring "Earth in the Balance" and we'll have a party.
Just think what the book-jackhammering will do for your campaign! You can take videos of it to use in your commercials.
You can get your entire blog staff to help out...
Skyepuppy,
Capital idea! For that, you and your mother can stay at my palacial Georgetown townhouse when you visit Washington.
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