Angel Castillo Jr., a former reporter and editor for the New York Times and The Miami Herald, practices employment law in Miami. He can be reached at acastillo@floridavoices.com.
If President Obama is serious about protecting freedom of speech in this country, he must instruct his Justice Department to criminally prosecute those offering money for the murder of the producer of the controversial video “Innocence of Muslims.”
The man behind the offensive anti-Islamic video, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-born resident of southern California, is the target of murder-for-money threats punishable under the federal criminal code. Those responsible for such threats can be indicted in the United States, even if they live in foreign countries.
A highly placed Pakistani government official, Federal Railways Minister Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who kills Nakoula. Bilour also has urged al-Qaida and Taliban militants to murder Nakoula.
Bilour belongs to a political party allied with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. He said a Pakistani businessman from Lahore, whom he did not identify, had offered another $400,000 for the killing.
Chiming in, Rehbar Mal, a representative of a Taliban breakaway faction in Afghanistan, offered eight kilograms of gold (about $487,000) to whoever kills Nakoula.
Anyone who doubts the seriousness of these public death threats need only recall the case of British Indian writer Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, was attacked by Islamic radicals for his irreverent depiction of Muhammad.
In 1989, Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatw mandating Rushdie’s murder because his book was “blasphemous against Islam.” In 2005, Khomeini’s fatw was reaffirmed by his current successor, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
During the summer of 1989, while Rushdie was living in London, a terrorist preparing a book bomb intended to kill the author instead blew himself up in a hotel there.
The 65-year-old Rushdie, who now lives in the United States, has had to exist with the fear of suffering a violent death for the past 23 years. No one has been punished for this crime.
Solicitation to commit a crime of violence is a felony under Section 373(a) of Title 18 of the United States Criminal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
There are numerous precedents for charging those who encourage the murder of another.
Just this week, the United States obtained the extradition to this country of the London-based terrorist of Pakistani descent Babar Ahmad, 38, who had been charged in Connecticut in 2004 with a violation of Section 373(a). From London, Ahmad had urged the killing of foreign nationals in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
On Tuesday, President Obama told the General Assembly of the United Nations: “There is no speech that justifies mindless violence.” The president should be true to his words and instruct Attorney General Eric Holder to indict those who are offering money for the commission of a murder in the United States.
Angel Castillo Jr., a former reporter and editor for the New York Times and The Miami Herald, practices employment law in Miami. He can be reached at acastillo@floridavoices.com.
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