Muslim group demands federal investigation of Quran burning

After Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III concluded that no state laws were violated by the unidentified person who burned a Quran and left it near an Islamic center in East Lansing, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is demanding a federal investigation and federal hate crime charges in the case.

The Detroit News reports:

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan, called on federal officials to pursue charges.

“We call on federal law enforcement authorities to investigate the burned Quran left at the mosque door as they would investigate and appropriately charge someone who would leave a burned cross at a African-American church or who left Nazi symbols at a synagogue,” Walid said.

“Not to prosecute this hate crime would send a terrible message to bigots that there will be no legal repercussion against those who intimidate Muslims at their houses of worship,” Walid said.

But Dunnings was right in his legal assessment and there are no statutory options under federal law that would fit either. The example of burning a cross at an African-American church, in fact, shows why this is the case. The Supreme Court ruled in a case called R.A.V. v St. Paul — a rare 9-0 decision by the court — that even burning a cross in the yard of a black family cannot be prosecuted for the message being expressed.

The perpetrator of such an act can be cited for violating content-neutral laws such as trespassing or burning without a permit, but cannot be prosecuted because the act, as the law under which the defendant was prosecuted in that case demanded, “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.”

The hate crimes act passed by Congress does not apply here because that law only kicks in when a crime has been committed that “willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person.” Because no one else was present when the burned Quran was left at the Islamic center, this law does not apply.

The burning of the Quran was an appalling act of bigotry. It might have been a violation of a local law such as trespassing. But it was not a “hate crime” under state or federal law, nor is it prosecutable as “hate speech” because there is no law which makes such speech illegal.