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Watch: Man Starts Tearing Koran At University Rally, Gets Met With Immediate Response
A video of a man who decided to show what he feels about Islam, by tearing pages out of the Koran on a college campus, has gone viral.
The incident happened last week at the Wright State University campus quad (near Dayton, Ohio), where speakers often gather to express their views on a variety of subjects.
In the video of the man’s speech, he holds up a book, which he says is the Koran, and yells, “This is evil…Muhammad is sinful…I hate the Koran!” as other students yells at him. Some in the growing crowd try to drown him down, chanting, “God is Love.”
The scene quickly grows chaotic as he begins to rip pages out of the Koran, causing campus police to step in and surround the man, who they then escorted to his car and off of the campus.
“To my knowledge, in my 16, 17 years here, I’ve never seen that,” Wright State Police Chief David Finnie told WHIO. “Our role here was simple. First of all, we support people expressing their First Amendment rights. There’s no better place than an academic setting.”
“If they’re inciting riots with their speech, if they’re going to damage property or hurt people, then we will intervene and shut down the event,” he added, referring to public speakers who frequent the quad.
The individual, who identified himself as John Williams, is not a Wright State student according to campus officials. “A Wright State spokesperson says the man is a student who travels to campuses across the country to demonstrate,” according to WDTN. University President David Hopkins said in a statement:
An individual not associated with our university ventured onto our campus and expressed himself in ways that many found disrespectful to various groups because of their religion, sexual orientation, gender, or status as a victim of sexual assault. His actions, in my opinion, were vile and disgusting. We all understand that public universities are places where a free exchange of ideas promotes the intellectual development of students and informs civic activity and policy beyond campus.
Hopkins added in a campus-wide email to students following the event that: “His actions are a reminder to all of us that we have a great responsibility in higher education to be the change that we seek in the world.”
Williams defends his actions: “Sometimes it takes a radical approach to get people’s attention. We’re just fishing for souls out there.”
“He said he is part of an organization he calls ‘Official Street Preachers’ whose members visit college campuses and employ ‘confrontational evangelism’ when preaching. ‘We confront people in their sins,’ he said,” according to WHIO.
Wright State University also made news earlier this week when it was announced that it will host the first presidential debate next fall, featuring the Republican and Democratic nominees.
The university was the location in 2008 where GOP nominee Sen. John McCain announced former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
WVXU reports:
The Wright State debate will be the first of four hosted the Commission on Presidential Debates.
A vice presidential debate will follow on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. The presidential candidates will meet again on Sunday, Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The third and final presidential debate will be Wednesday, Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
All four debates are being held in what are likely to be key swing states in next year’s presidential election – Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, and Nevada.
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/watch-man-starts-tearing-koran-at-university-rally-gets-met-with-immediate-response/
