Is It a Crime or Terrorism?
Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt, September 27
The ongoing debate in Europe, particularly in France, surrounding the classification of a specific type of crime as either terrorist or hate-related, persists. In a span of just one year, France witnessed two abhorrent acts that were deemed as hate and racist offenses rather than acts of terror. The first incident occurred last year when a 69-year-old retired train conductor, who happened to be white, intentionally targeted Kurdish immigrants, resulting in the death of three individuals. This barbaric crime was undoubtedly fueled by hatred and prejudice. The man was also accused of stabbing two immigrants with a knife in a Parisian camp. His admission of harboring hatred towards immigrants and foreigners—a sentiment purportedly derived when he was arrested for burglary in 2016—corroborates this accusation. This deeply disturbing case serves as a reminder of the threat immigrants face in countries like France. The truth is that most racist crimes in the West can be traced to political ideology. Such rhetoric typically demonizes immigrants, advocating for their exclusion without directly inciting violence. Yet, it can lay the groundwork for violent escalation, as was seen in New Zealand five years ago, when a terrorist attack on a mosque took the lives of dozens of innocent individuals. Notably, the perpetrator’s manifesto demonstrated his adherence to the ideas of French researcher Renaud Camus, whose book The Great Replacement has been adopted by extreme right-wing forces in Europe and America. At its core, Camus’ thesis proposes that increased Muslim migration to Europe will lead to the eventual replacement of European peoples. The French prosecution described the killing of Kurds as a hate crime, not a terrorist crime, due to the absence of a unified ideology underlying the killer’s actions, such as those espoused by ISIS and other extremist groups. Likewise, the second crime that shook France was a Syrian refugee’s stabbing in a public park near a lake in the French Alps region. The offender, who was reportedly chanting the name of Christ in English, injured four children aged 3 and under, along with several adults. At a press conference, the French public prosecutor concluded that the perpetrator did not act with a “terrorist motive.” She revealed that the individual was 32 years old, had been granted asylum in Sweden 10 years ago, and arrived in France late last year. Despite an asylum request, the French authorities had rejected it because his documentation stated he was a Christian from Syria, married to a Swedish woman, and a father of a 3-year-old child. The ongoing controversy over legal classifications of certain violent crimes persists. Murders due to racism or resulting from feelings of frustration, failure, or marginalization are not viewed as terrorism, unlike those that arise from a political or religious ideology that embraces it; those are labeled as “terrorist crimes.” —Amr El-Shobaki (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
