On Friday, a Turkish court charged an internationally known pianist with the crime of insulting religious values for comments about Islam he posted on his twitter feed. The pianist, Fazil Say, allegedly mocked Islamic teachings about paradise. Say denies the charge, arguing through his attorney that his tweets were not public and that he merely criticized people who exploit Islam for profit. A New York Times discussion of the case is here.
Crouch on Criminal Trials of Religious Minorities
Melissa Crouch (Melbourne Law School) has posted Criminal (In)Justice in Indonesia: The Cikeusik Trials. The abstract follows.
This article examines the recent court trials of the twelve men who were implicated in the brutal killing of three Ahmadis, and of injuring several others, in a demonstration against Ahmadiyah in Cikeusik in 2011. It calls into question the integrity of the criminal justice system, and argues that the government must take a firm stance against the perpetrators of vigilante violence by ensuring fair and impartial trials in criminal cases concerning religious intolerance, rather than criminalising the activities of religious minorities.
Reporting Child Sex Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community
The Jewish Daily Forward reports on a controversy in Brooklyn over D.A. Charles Hynes’s refusal to name scores of Orthodox Jews arrested for child sex crimes over the last three years. Hynes has charged 85 members of the Orthodox Jewish community with such crimes, but says that releasing their names might identify the victims, which NY law forbids. Critics say this is a pretext and that Hynes, an elected official, is in fact trying to maintain the support of the influential Orthodox Jewish community, which opposes releasing the names. The Forward article also discusses a controversial policy adopted by Agudath Israel, an umbrella group of Orthodox rabbis, that requires Jews who suspect child sex abuse to consult their rabbis before reporting their suspicions to secular authorities. Critics argue that Orthodox rabbis often persuade people that approaching the civil authorities would violate Jewish law principles such as the prohibition on lashon harah, or “evil gossip.”
Holland’s Moroccan Immigrant Population
A disturbing story about the problems of Moroccan integration in Dutch society. If the report is true that 40% of Moroccan immigrants between the ages of 12 and 24 have been arrested, fined, or charged with criminal offenses, that seems to me an extraordinarily serious situation, irrespective of the cause. Even worse, this does not seem to be a problem that will improve in the near future. The story also references the work of Dutch journalist Fleur Jurgens, who is clearly a committed opponent of Holland’s multiculturalist policies, and who has written that “Moroccan parents are to blame for the antisocial behavior of their children by teaching them at a young age to hate the Dutch and abhor their society.” According to the story, the Dutch government “now says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Moroccans and other Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.” Difficult times indeed for the Netherlands.
Loathsome
Readers are no doubt aware of the horrifying charges arising out of the Penn State University incident, in which it is alleged that an assistant coach of the football team molested several boys and that several members in the front office of the football organization did not report the crimes. If the charges are true, they are loathsome indeed.
Loathsome in a different way is this line in today’s New York Times column by Maureen Dowd: “Like the Roman Catholic Church, Penn State is an arrogant institution hiding behind its mystique.” Whatever may be the viability of the charges against Penn State officials under Pennsylvania’s failure to report statute, or against specific clerics in the Roman Catholic Church in positions of power in entirely distinct cases (and they may well be legally viable), the blanket smear of this comment — its suggestion that all cases look alike, or that it is appropriate to indict an entire Church, whatever the facts may look like, for what Dowd perceives as “arrogan[ce]” — is, in my opinion, despicable. — MOD
Legal Indictments and Indictments of Other Kinds
When someone is indicted in criminal law, the meaning of the indictment is that a grand jury has found that it is more probable than not that the accused has committed a specific criminal offense. An indictment is an accusation by the government. The accused cannot be brought to trial without it. One ought to take note of an indictment, but one ought also to recognize that different standards of proof govern indictments than criminal trials and that little in the way of evidence is often needed to obtain an indictment. Lastly, there is generally no opportunity to present exculpatory evidence or make any pre-trial motions in the indictment process. The indictment is the prosecutor’s instrument alone. I know that many readers will know this, but I thought it might be useful to clarify the specific and limited quality of a legal indictment since Bishop Finn was indicted under a Missouri statute. I believe, but am not sure, that the statute is section 210.115.1 of the Missouri Code, which states:
When any . . . minister . . . has reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been or may be subjected to abuse or neglect or observes a child being subjected to conditions or circumstances which would reasonably result in abuse or neglect, that person shall immediately report or cause a report to be made to the division in accordance with the provisions of sections 210.109 to 210.183 . . . .
One of the reasons that I think it important to emphasize the particular and somewhat arcane legal meaning of an indictment is because of columns like this one by Anthea Butler, a professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania, who titles her piece, “Bishop Finn-dicted For Protecting Pedophile Priest.”
Professor Butler properly notes the fact of Bishop Finn’s indictment, but then makes some statements which, at least from a legal perspective, are not sound. She claims, for example, that “the indictment is another warning shot aimed at the enclave of the Vatican.” The expression of symbolic minatory messages is not the purpose of a legal indictment. She connects the indictment to “[c]hanges to the liturgy” which she believes “have many up in arms[.]” Again, liturgical preferences have nothing at all to do with this indictment. She claims that “Cardinals and Bishops like Philadelphia’s Bishop Chaput can only whine about how terrible the press is, without being accountable for the actions that have caused the press to scrutinize the church so intensely.” If this is a reference to the indictment of Bishop Finn, I’m afraid it is misplaced. “Cardinals and Bishops like Philadelphia’s Bishop Chaput” had no legal duty to report child abuse under the Missouri statute.
And Professor Butler concludes with this: “The church does not need another plan; what’s needed is action and more indictments to get the attention of an institution that has sacrificed children to protect its rotten hierarchy. I for one cannot wait for the real purge of tainted clerics to happen.” Once again, Professor Butler’s excitement for the coming purge and the issuance of “more indictments” has nothing to do with the legal indictment of Bishop Finn.
Obviously Professor Butler is interested in indictments of other kinds — political, social, cultural, religious — but these are not legal indictments, and I think it important to keep the difference clearly in view. — MOD