Since this is FQ, I’d like the discussion to be factual. Mods, please feel to move this, if needed.
I would have thought that the suspect in the subject attack will be charged for a hate crime, since it meets several of the criteria given here : Hate crime - Wikipedia
But CNN makes no mention of a hate crime and says “State police recommend suspect in Salman Rushdie attack be charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault” :
Can someone explain, why ?
Because a hate crime requires evidence of motive. Right now they probably only have evidence of the attack. Establishing motive will take time.
It would have to meet all the elements of NYs hate crime laws.
I’m not sure the elements are met if you attack based on your own religious beliefs.
I have a supplementary question. Can anyone who pronounced a “fatwa” effectively offering a reward for the murder of Salman Rushdie be charged with a crime?
For this discussion I am not particularly interested in the practical aspects of charging a foreign politician who is outside the jurisdiction. I am just interested to know what is the name of the crime, if any, where a person makes it known to the public that they will reward the murder of another, but does not procure a specific person to carry out that murder, and if there are examples of people being prosecuted for this kind of activity.
Probably not.
Assuming Matar attacked Rushdie due to the fatwa, religion would be a factor. But it was Matar’s religion that was the motivating factor not Rushdie’s. Rushdie was presumably targeted as an individual not as a member of some group.
Incitement
One could argue that Rushdie was targeted because he is an apostate Muslim, and that apostate Muslims as a group face persecution from many Muslim communities, authorities, and governments. He is in this group due to his own religious beliefs.
I don’t feel this is the case. The fatwa wasn’t declared against Rushdie because he was an apostate Muslim. It was declared because Rushdie is the author of The Satanic Verses, which was said to be an attack on Islam. This would have been the same regardless if Rushdie had been a Christian, a Jew, or a Hindu Atheist.
That said, I have not heard what Matar’s motives are for the crime. I am only assuming for the sake of this thread that it is a response to the fatwa.
I can’t figure out why Matar isn’t being charged with premeditated murder.
Because Rushdie is, as of this writing, alive?
OK attempted premeditated murder. Apologies for any confusion, I am not off to obtain more caffeine…
What would be the conclusion of such an argument?
How is that going to help?
Just underscores that there was too much blood in my caffeine stream.
Damn auto-correct. Yes. I’ll blame the auto-correct.
That would be up to the court. I am just proposing an argument to me made that Rushdie was attacked because he was part of a protected class based on religious practices.
We don’t have a charge of premeditated murder in New York.
Matar had been charged with Murder in the Second Degree. He did not meet any of the special circumstances that would justify a charge of Murder in the First Degree as defined by New York. (Although you could make an argument that his crime qualified as a terrorist attack.)
Wait, did Rushdie die today? Because you can’t be charged with murder unless someone dies.
Yeah, all the reporting I’m seeing says that he was charged with second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault.
But he was (we assume) attacked essentially because of his action, what he said about his religious beliefs, as expressed in a book. If someone attacked a person not because he was black, but because he was a black who had sex with a white woman (to pick a particularly offensive reason for an attack, but historically not uncommon) that does not make it not a hate crime.
If a Nazi is handing out copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and a passing Jew punches him out because of it, is the Jew guilty of a hate crime?
This is basically the same situation. The attack was not (presumably) because of Rushdie’s professed religious beliefs, but because he was perceived to be mocking someone else’s religious beliefs. “Person who mocks religions,” isn’t really a protected class, as far as most hate crime legislation goes.
Of course, it’s not completely cut and dried - a Shiite Muslim who attacks a Sunni Muslim, because “Sunni beliefs mock true Islam,” would still be guilty of a hate crime. It’s possible that, as this guy’s motivation comes out, it might prove to be something close enough to this to make the attack on Rushdie a hate crime.