200

Canadian white nationalist found guilty of murdering four Muslims in truck attack (www.reuters.com)

submitted 10 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/world@lemmy.world

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] ArugulaZ@kbin.social 9 points 10 months ago

Good thing it was in Canada... otherwise they probably would have given the guy two months probation and an offer to work with the Trump administration.

[-] interceder270@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Good thing it was in Canada, or he may have had a gun.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 6 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

OTTAWA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - A 22-year-old self-confessed Canadian white nationalist who deliberately ran over and killed four members of a Muslim family in his truck in 2021 was found guilty of first degree murder on Thursday.

Prosecutors argued the attack was an act of terrorism, noting Veltman had written a manifesto entitled "A White Awakening" in which he outlined hatred of Islam and opposition to mass immigration and multiculturalism.

Five members of the Afzaal family, originally from Pakistan, were out for an evening walk in June 2021 when Veltman ran over them with his truck on the sidewalk.

It sets a precedent against white nationalist terrorism," said Abdul Fattah Twakkal, an imam at the London Muslim Mosque.

"The enduring grief, trauma and the irreplaceable void left by the loss of multiple generations has pierced us profoundly," Madiha Salman's mother Tabinda Bukhari told reporters.

Prosecutors said he also repeatedly watched the video of a mass shooting by a white supremacist in New Zealand which killed 51 people.

The original article contains 431 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[+] Tedesche@lemmy.world -7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The jury took around six hours to convict Nathaniel Veltman, who attacked the family in the Ontario town of London. He faces life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.

This man ended four lives and orphaned a young boy, all out of irrational, racist hatred, and he may get to walk free at 47 years old. I oppose the death penalty only because human justice systems are shockingly bad at ensuring innocent people don't get convicted of crimes they didn't actually commit, but I very much believe in life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and this douchebag definitely deserves it. I don't care if he reforms himself in prison, later regrets his actions, and plans to spend the rest of his free time at a charity for Muslim immigrants; he should never see sunlight again. Not only are four people dead because of his bigotry, many other lives have been scarred as a result. He does not deserve mercy nor a second chance. Morally, he doesn't even deserve to live out the rest of his life.

It really irks me that liberals are so reticent about punishing vile pieces of human waste like this. This is not fair, not just. So much hand-wringing about mercy and second chances for cold-blooded killers. When you have more empathy for criminals than their victims, your priorities are way out of whack. Shameful.

[-] blargerer@kbin.social 20 points 10 months ago

I think the mainstream liberal take is probably very aligned with yours. You have to go further left to get a different opinion. But I hold such an opinion so to give my perspective: I don't give 2 shits about punishment for punishments sake. If anything I only see that as causing more harm. What I care about is reducing net harm. There have been countless studies that have shown that severity of punishment is an extremely poor deterrent. Often times perpetrators are more concerned with the social impact getting caught will have on their immediate contacts over how long they'll be jailed for, and frankly, just don't think that they'll get caught at all. If we take that for true, and my goal of reducing net harm, the value of jail becomes reforming those who can be reformed, and keeping those who can't locked away from the rest of society. Neither of these things are intrinsically tied to any period of time. And because of how we treat ex-cons in society currently recidivism rates get worse for having been in prison. Possibly because they can't get legal work, and possibly because the social reputation damage has already been done, so that fear is no longer holding them back.

[-] Tedesche@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I don’t give 2 shits about punishment for punishments sake. If anything I only see that as causing more harm.

Yes, this is the standard view I get from a lot of liberals these days. Maybe you're right that most liberals are more aligned with me than you, but I've personally seen your views getting more popular with time, and I really don't like it.

Reason being, your view only takes into account the likelihood of future harm, but explicitly fails to address the harm already done. It's like you don't give a damn about the people criminals hurt, only their likelihood of hurting people in the future. Let's say this driver had merely been drunk, rather than racist, and he accidentally killed this family. In your view (and correct me if I'm wrong), he should only be incarcerated in a treatment facility for as long as it takes for his treatment providers to feel he is no longer a danger to society. Let's say this is the only time he's ever driven drunk, and its enough of a wake-up call for him that he's sober and remorseful within a year. That means he would be free and back to his life while the family of the people he killed are likely still mourning their deaths. Does that seem fair to you? According to you, it doesn't matter. Who cares? To me, that means you don't really give a damn about justice.

Like it or not, punishment is a part of justice. It's not about revenge—that's why we have punishments decided on and doled out by an impartial third party—it's about making someone who has made others suffer suffer themselves in some humane way, because if we don't, most people do not feel justice has been done. But you think we shouldn't even do that. This astonishes me. It makes me think you need to be the victim of a major crime, to be seriously hurt in some way by someone else, and then see them get a slap-on-the-wrist sentence, and see how it makes you feel.

I'm going to tell you right now that I've had this conversation with people like you many times over the years, and so I don't expect you're going to offer me any arguments that I haven't heard before. So, if I don't respond to your next comment, that's why. Just FYI.

[-] InformalTrifle@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

I agree with you, but not sure how you can generalise the “liberal” position on that. I consider myself liberal and agree with everything you said

[-] Tedesche@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I probably should have said “some liberals.” My experience is that younger liberals tend to hold the view that punishment shouldn’t be a goal of criminal sentencing, only rehabilitation, which I adamantly disagree with. Obviously, such a view is mainly held by the Far Left, but from what I’ve seen it seems to be getting more popular and thus more mainstream. Just my impression; I’d be happy to learn I’m wrong and that those liberals are more in the minority than they seem to me.

this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023

200 points (98.5% liked)

World News

38639 readers

2998 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

little_cow@lemmy.world

quinten@lemmy.world

NewsAutoMod@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

lemmyAtom@lemmy.world

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world