Is Joyce Kaufman related to Joe Kaufman by any chance? Florida seems to have a high percentage of loons!

Cerabino: Publix Calendar Yanked through Political Mischief

Hey, don’t bother looking for your free Publix calendar.

The coupon-loaded calendar, which had been a yearly giveaway for the past five years, was yanked this past week from all of the chain’s South Florida supermarkets.

Why? Collateral damage of today’s political climate.

On Dec. 7, the 2010 calendar lists Islamic New Year, not Pearl Harbor Day.

There are two ways to react:

1. To get into a xenophobic tizzy while weaving this into a narrative of a vast anti-American conspiracy that leads right up to the subversive undercover-Muslim, Kenyan interloper in the White House.

Or …

2. To assume that the grocery store chain has no reason to offend people, and that Publix, in an effort to be inclusive, inadvertently became a victim of a synchronicity of dates and an unconscious omission.

Publix pointed out that Pearl Harbor Day had never been listed in the store’s calendars . And the Islamic New Year had been on the Publix calendar since 2006.

And nobody complained.

Not a political document

The rub is that this year the Islamic New Year, which changes dates because it is based on a lunar calendar, falls on Pearl Harbor Day.

And why does the calendar list Islamic New Year? For the same inclusive reason it lists the Jewish High Holidays, Chinese New Year and an international array of other dates, including Puerto Rico Commonwealth Constitutional Day, Haitian Flag Day, Boss’s Day and Administrative Assistant’s Day.

It’s not a political document. It’s a calendar with pictures of animals that you get for free, along with discount coupons. To make more of it is to engage in political mischief.

“I was driving home Tuesday night and Allen West told me to look at the Publix calendar,” said Joyce Kaufman, a WFTL-AM talk-show host.

West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a Republican candidate running for the congressional seat held by Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.

Radio host urges audience uprising

Kaufman, who advertises her radio show with the words “America first. No apologies,” didn’t require much arm twisting to parlay the quinella of Islamophobia and flag waving to her audience the next day.

“What relevance does Islamic New Year have in my country?” Kaufman told me. “Islam is an ideology, and it’s not friendly to me.”

She said World War II veterans were “terribly offended” and she urged her audience to show up at their local Publix to complain.

“You show this calendar to the manager and say, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ ”

Meanwhile, a “Dear Fellow Americans” e-mail was urging a boycott, citing an “un-American attitude” of Publix for “recognizing the Muslim New Year over Pearl Harbor Day.”

Publix wisely yanked the benign calendar, which had become a talking point in a cartoonish alternate universe.

“Based on feedback we have received this year, if a free calendar is produced for 2011, we will also include Pearl Harbor Day,” Publix spokesman Kim Jaeger said in a statement.

~ frank_cerabino@pbpost.com

Fathima Rifqa Bary

It has now been revealed that the pastors of the Florida Church, Beverly and Blake Lorenz had knowledge of what they were doing before hand, and they also knew that they were breaking the law.

Fathima Rifqa Bary: Pastors knew they were breaking the law

A former administrator at an Orlando church told investigators that the church’s pastors who took in a teenage runaway this summer knew that they were doing something unlawful.

In a sworn statement filed this week in Ohio, Brian Smith stated that “many lawyers” told pastor Blake Lorenz he was “breaking the law” by aiding the teen, Fathima Rifqa Bary.

Smith is a former administrator of Global Revolution Church, a church founded by husband and wife pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz.

Rifqa, then 16, ran away from her home outside Columbus, Ohio, in mid-July and hopped a Greyhound bus to Orlando.

She sought shelter with the Lorenzes, whom she met through an online prayer group.

Rifqa said she feared her Muslim family would harm her or kill her because she converted to Christianity. Her parents have denied the teen’s claim, and investigators found no proof of it.

According to the affidavit, Blake Lorenz told Smith that Lorenz and another church member went to the Orlando bus station and bought Rifqa a ticket under a false name. Before she arrived in Orlando, Lorenz also asked Smith for church money to pay some of her expenses, including the cost of a bed and a disposable cell phone.

Also in his affidavit, Smith said Blake Lorenz refused to call Florida’s Department of Children and Families when he was advised by police and others to report that Rifqa was living with them. Rifqa’s parents had reported her missing to Ohio authorities.

Prosecutors to make charging decision

Florida law says people cannot shelter an unmarried minor for more than 24 hours without the consent of their parent or guardian, or without notifying a law-enforcement officer of the child’s name.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation into the pastors’ role is complete, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Danny Banks said.

In upcoming weeks, FDLE will submit its case to the State Attorney’s Office, which will review the file and soon will make a charging decision, Banks said.

“I wish I could respond,” Blake Lorenz said Wednesday of Smith’s sworn statement. “The truth’s going to prevail. I’m not worried.”

He referred questions to lawyer Mat Staver, who was critical of Smith’s statement.

“There’s a lot of allegations in that affidavit that I know personally are not factual,” Staver said. “I’ve known the Lorenzes for 20 years. The last thing they would do is intentionally violate the law.”

Staver did not point to any specific charges that are incorrect but called Smith a disgruntled former employee.

Reached Wednesday, Smith said his sworn statement is truthful based on the information he had been told. And he said he “absolutely” is not a disgruntled former employee.

In an earlier interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Lorenz said he did call DCF. A DCF spokeswoman earlier confirmed the agency received four calls related to Rifqa’s case, but wouldn’t say who made those calls. The calls were received July 29, Aug. 6, and two on Aug. 7.

Rifqa’s story turned international

Rifqa stayed with the Lorenzes for more than two weeks before she was ordered into DCF custody by an Orange County judge.

Fearful that Rifqa would be sent back to her parents in Ohio, the Lorenzes in August alerted the Orlando media about a custody hearing.

Rifq’a story then turned into one of international intrigue with religious factions lining up against each other before and after custody hearings in Orlando.

Rifwa eventually was sent back to Ohio to live with a foster family.

The Lorenzes reorganized Global Revolution Church after their role in the Rifqa affair was disclosed. They now lead a congregation under another name.

In Smith’s sworn statement, he said he told Lorenz he was “very uncomfortable” with the Rifqa situation and spoke to his personal lawyer.

“My lawyer explained to me that they were in violation of several laws and to immediately hang up, call Blake and tell him to call DCF immediately,” Smith said in his statement. “She quoted several laws to me and the seriousness of them.”

“I called Blake and informed him of what the lawyer said. I implored him to call DCF immediately. He said he wouldn’t because they would just return her to her parents.”

Rene Stutzman of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Amy L. Edwards can be reached at aledwards@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5735.

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Joe Kaufman

We haven’t written much on Joe Kaufman recently, but that doesn’t mean he has fallen off our radar. Kaufman is in the same league of Islamophobic kookieness as Pamela Geller, and his radical if comical beliefs expose him as a somewhat dangerous if bumbling joker.

Recently, Kaufman went haywire over the participation of CAIR in the Broward County “adopt-a-street” program, a program where a group takes the initiative to “adopt” a street and clear it of litter. Kaufman was incensed and accused the county of giving into terrorism.

Adam Horowitz, of Mondoweiss, has an excellent piece on the goofy antics that make up Joe Kaufman’s crusade against the “adopt-a-street” program.

If this street gets cleaned the terrorists win

The South Florida Sun Sentinel is reporting that right-wing Jewish extremist, and one time vice-chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition of South Florida, Joe Kaufman is leading the charge against one of this country’s greatest security threats: the Adopt-A-Street program in Florida’s Broward County. Kaufman is incensed that the county had the short sightedness to allow the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to participate in its “adopt a street” program. And he’s not taking it lying down.

The Sun Sentinel explains:

A small group of demonstrators led by Americans Against Hate Chairman Joe Kaufman last Friday accused Broward County and the Town of Davie of supporting an organization with ties to Islamic terrorists.

A street sign in Davie sparked the anger of the demonstrators who protested in front of the Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale on a rainy Friday afternoon.

The sign, at the southwest corner of College Avenue and Nova Drive, credits the Miami office of the Council on American Islamic Relations ( CAIR-FL) for its participation in a Broward County program to clear litter from an “adopted” street.

Kaufman said when he complained about the sign, a spokesman for the Town of Davie told him it would not be removed because CAIR had a Constitutional right to free speech.

“Freedom of speech is a poor excuse,” Kaufman said to the demonstrators. “This is not about free speech. It’s about terrorism.”(Emphasis added)

Let us interject here for a moment, as there is something very revealing in the comments from Kaufman. When he was told that this is a matter of free speech, and that CAIR (which has never been convicted of or charged with terrorism) has the right to participate in this program, Kaufman replied by saying that “this is not about free speech.” All of a sudden free speech no longer matters when “Mooslims” are involved. Kaufman, seems to believe free speech is only valuable when criticizing or defaming/hating Islam and Muslims but when it is extended to everyone it is “a poor excuse.”

This also reveals the wider hypocrisy in the Islamophobic movement, we hear the constant refrain from Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Wafa Sultan, etc. that Mooslims are trying to muzzle their voices, that Mooslims are “against free speech,” but as we have shown time and again when they are challenged and exposed they cry about being “libeled,” “intimidated,” “shocked” even calling for retractions and “apologies.” It seems to be a case of what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander, and Kaufman’s Freudian slip illustrates this very well.

Adam Horowitz continues,

The Sun Sentinel says that Muhammad Malik, the civil rights director of CAIR’s South Florida branch, responded by explaining, “the organization wanted to bring out people to pick up litter from the street, like any other group.”

If there was ever any doubt that segments of the Jewish community have totally lost touch with reality just check out this quote from Kaufman on the press release for the protest explaining why it was being held on Hanukkah:

“On Hanukkah, millions of people around the world celebrate the triumph of the Jewish people over those who wished to destroy them. We want Broward County to recognize the fact that those involved with Hamas, like the Greeks 2000 years before them, have a similar goal to destroy the Jews. And we want Broward County to know that it allowed a sign to be ‘adopted’ by a group connected to Hamas.”

And so Joe, you’re saying the Greeks also tried to destroy the Jews by cleaning their streets? That is almost as shocking as some of Americans Against Hate’s merchandise (and be sure to not miss this).

Is Kaufman’s war against CAIR picking up litter from the streets a surprise? No, it is a hilarious inside into the extremist character of Kaufman, moulded by the thoughts of Meir Kahane. Everything is Jihad and terror, cleaning up the streets is equal to destroying America. It would have been sad if it wasn’t so funny.

Who is he?:

Joe Kaufman, has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.”  That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.

In the past he has been accused of contributing to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.

Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”

In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.

In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass on as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.

[Zingel: "Tis the season to be hateful, fa la la la, la la la la! sing along kids!"]

It seems the attention mongers at Dove Outreach Ministries, you know that group that came up with “Islam is of the Devil” T-Shirts is at it again, this time they are trying to get their message out by transforming Christmas from a “Merry Holiday” into a “Hate Islam Holiday.”

Christmas Display Targets Islamic Faith

This video, a compilation of Christmas lights displays from Gainesville, Florida, starts off like any other. You’ll see a nice selection of lights and houses decorated for the holidays. But the last display, from the controversial Dove World Outreach Center, is causing a bit of a stir in the neighborhood. It reads “Islam Is Of The Devil” and is clearly offensive to some residents.

Allen West

The political season is turning out to be a hot one with elections in a lot of districts around the United States coming up in 2010, and there are sure to be some interesting races and good old political shenanigans. There will also be Republican contenders who will resort to the cheap strategy of xenophobia, hate and Islamophobia. We already have Lynne Torgerson, (who judging from her campaign picture looks as though she saves a lot of money by cutting her own hair), the Minnesota republican running against Rep.Keith Ellison and then there is Allen West.

We have to thank our long time reader James for bringing Allen West to our attention, we have heard of West before, mostly because Pamela Geller, other wise known as the looniest blogger ever, likes to take pictures with him and gloat on how anti-Muslim he is, in fact just today she wrote “West is America’s best hope.”  It also turns out that he isn’t only anti-Muslim but he is also somewhat of a racist who includes a highly dangerous degree of biblical literalism into his worldview, which wouldn’t be a problem if that would inform his personal life but it becomes a problem for all of us when it informs his policy ideas.

The truth is, it is not really clear how much of a chance Allen West has, hopefully next to none, though when he ran in 2008 he lost by only 29,000 votes, but crazier things have happened in Florida. Lets take a gander at what he advocates: he is a hawk on every issue, from Health Care and Immigration to National Defense.  As you can tell he wants no Health Care reform, agrees with Michael Savage on Immigration and on National Defense says in a bizarre sentence about fighting America’s “enemies”,

I pledge to never succumb to this enemy, seek out non-kinetic means, but will stand ready to go kinetic in order to “provide for the common defense”.

I don’t know if that means he will go nuclear or is willing to fight many wars but it sounds like jibberish.

Allen West with Pamela "the loon" Geller

On his website, Allen West has a whole page dedicated to his Christian Zionist/dispensationalist view on Israel. When you read it you understand why kooks like Pamela Geller love him so much, he essentially takes a position squarely outside of the mainstream in both the Middle East and United States by stating he is against the “creation of a Palestinian state.”

I do not support any creation of a Palestinian state, to do so would be to create a terrorist state. There is already a state for the Arabic people residing in the region called Palestine, Jordan. If the Arabs can build an indoor ski slope in Dubai, they can resolve the issue of their Arab brothers and sisters…I do not support any division of Jerusalem. If I recall from history and the Old Testament, David, Son of Israel built Jerusalem and his son Solomon made it great. The muslim claims to Jerusalem are based upon a very contentious story concocted by muhammad, and of course the latter conquering of the city, even by Salahaddin. One flag will fly over Jerusalem, the Israeli flag, never any other, certainly not a UN flag.

I don’t even know where to begin in deconstructing the enormous fallacies and clear bigotry on display in the above quotations. There seems to be a mammoth disconnect in reality here, two presidents, including a man West admires, George W. Bush clearly stated that a Palestinian state will be created. He obviously believes all Palestinians/Arabs are terrorists, that they are all “Mooslims,” and that their right to live or not live in their homes in Jerusalem are based on “stories” which somehow have less validity than the “stories” in the Old Testament.

Scary, this guy is like what would happen if Glenn Beck and Pamela Geller conspired to bring their wildest dreams to fruition in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. But that isn’t all, West also seems to believe that according to his twisted literal interpretation of the Bible, Arabs are stained forever with certain characteristics, this is the same kind of racist mindset that justified the Apartheid regime in South Africa and all other racist ideologies in the past.

Genesis Chapter 16, verses 11-12 states, “And the Angel of the Lord said to her (Hagar): Behold you are with child, and you shall bear a son, you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against everyman, and every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”

Ishmael of course became the beginning of the Arab people….and God’s word is immutable truth.

In closing, there are battle lines clearly drawn, I know where I stand, and that is to support the State of Israel.

This kind of religious zeal imbuing our politics is old, it was thrown into the trash heap when Bush’s term ended and the Republicans who relied on this kind of rhetoric were voted out of office. Allen West, hopes to resurrect it by positioning himself in a fantastical “Kinetic” battle pitting himself on the side of Israel against those spawns of Ishmael, the Arabs/Mooslims.

Fathima Rifqa Bary

Judge Daniel Dawson who has been presiding over the Fathima Rifqa Bary case in Florida has ruled that she should return home to Ohio where she will be staying with a foster family. No doubt the fanatical anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing nuts will be labeling the judge a dhimmi for following the law. They tried their hardest to smear this family and Muslims with everything they could, including lies, today it finally seems that this case which should have been decided from the very beginning is finally drawing to a close.

Fathima Rifqa Bary is likely coming home to Ohio, the state she fled nearly three months ago, saying she feared death for her conversion to Christianity.

But she’ll be staying in a foster home, not her parents’ Northeast Side apartment.

Jurisdiction in the 17-year-old’s case should be transferred from Florida to Ohio, judges in both states decided via conference call yesterday.

Dependency cases were filed in both states to determine whether the girl should be returned to her parents, who she says would harm her for leaving Islam.

“I believe this is the home state and the most convenient forum with respect to the issues as I understand them,” said Franklin County Juvenile Judge Elizabeth Gill.

Judge Daniel P. Dawson of the 9th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida agreed, but he required certain steps be taken before she is returned.

Rifqa ran away in July, saying her father threatened to kill her for becoming a Christian. Mohamed Bary denied her accusations, and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found no credible threats to her safety.

She could be back in Ohio by Oct. 27, when a hearing is scheduled in Franklin County Juvenile Court, said Dawson, speaking from Orlando.

But before ordering her into the care of Franklin County Children Services, Dawson wanted two issues settled.

He asked for documented assurance that Rifqa’s online schooling can continue in Ohio. Dawson also asked that Rifqa’s parents provide all paperwork related to her immigration status before she crosses state lines.

The immigration status of Rifqa, a native of Sri Lanka, is unclear. Her guardian ad litem in Florida said she may not be in the United States legally.

It isn’t yet clear exactly when Rifqa will return, or how she will be transported. She will receive a psychological evaluation when she gets here.

Dawson asked whether the Barys could simply dismiss the Ohio dependency case because they filed it themselves in an attempt to transfer jurisdiction.

Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Chris Julian said they would not agree to dismiss the case. A Children Services official added that it would not be in Rifqa’s or her family’s best interest for her to live at home at this time.

In Gill’s courtroom yesterday, Mohamed Bary and his wife, Aysha, sat calmly between their attorneys. They laughed when they heard Rifqa’s Florida attorney, John Stemberger, say that she was in danger of being sent back to Sri Lanka where she could be killed or institutionalized.

Stemberger also said Rifqa wants to stay in Florida.

After the hearing, the Barys and their 18-year-old son, Rilvan, said they were told not to comment. Rifqa’s Ohio attorney, Kort Gatterdam, cited a gag order in declining to comment.

Dawson expressed frustration during the hearing that the Barys had not provided Rifqa’s immigration paperwork after repeated requests.

He gave them 10 business days to comply, under threat of being found in contempt of court.

He also ordered the release of the 110-page transcript of a nearly three-hour interview with Rifqa that was conducted by Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators. But some information must be redacted first, he said, not specifying an exact release date.

mheagney@dispatch.com

Pamela Geller, who has invested so much in this case, even making up lies whole cloth and trying to pass it on as “investigative journalism” is not pleased. In her usual shrill and radically bigoted style she writes that this is a “slow motion execution, shariah style.” Practically that the American system of law is Shariah. The woman is nuts. At the same time Robert Spencer takes his talking points from Pam and writes that “US court capitulates to shariah.” What fantasy land are they living in? My guess is when this case is over, as it soon will be, you will see Spencer distance himself from the case by remaining silent on it, or as per his practice declare victory.

The Family of Fathima Rifqa Bary

This is another great article from Michael Kruse. He combines thoughtful and exhaustive research with insightful  research. It sheds more light on the Fathima Rifqa Bary case which will hopefully be resolved soon. Will the daft anti-Muslim bloggers who were pushing all sorts of wild conspiracy theories and slander about this family finally apologize? Don’t hold your breath!

The Life Rifqa Bary Ran Away From

WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Rifqa Bary saw a girl. She kept seeing her. She saw her in the bathroom and the lunch room and the locker room.

“And for some reason,” Rifqa said later in a video posted on YouTube, “I told her I was a Christian.”

Which she wasn’t. Not yet.

“Wanted to fit in, maybe,” she said.

Eventually she would run away from her home here and flee to Florida, believing her Muslim family had to kill her because of her conversion to Christianity. Eventually she would become for some a crucial character in a culture war. Eventually her story would fill TV airtime, stoke partisan blogs and spark dueling custody cases in courts in two states.

But this is where it started: Rifqa saw a girl. The girl asked her to go to church. So she went.

The Korean United Methodist Church is a brick building with a low roof on a busy road in Columbus. The sign outside says “Welcome.” Inside, on Nov. 18, 2005, people stood and sang, “with fire in their eyes,” Rifqa said, and so she did, too. The pastor talked about salvation and invited newcomers up to the altar.

“I felt nothing but love,” Rifqa said in the video.

She was 13 then. She is 17 now. The story of her life in between is the journey of a teenage girl, the only daughter in an immigrant family, a brown-skinned, lower-middle-class high school student in a mostly well-to-do, white suburb, looking for a place to belong.

What started as adolescent identity issues and predictable tensions with her parents ultimately became a plan to escape. In her mind, it was her role in an epic battle between God and the Devil, in which she was both a prize and a prophet.

• • •

Home for the Bary family is a second-floor apartment with a tan carpet and two bedrooms. The table in the dining room sits on unsteady legs. The living room couches are draped in blankets to cover the worn upholstery.

This is where Rifqa lived, with her father, Mohamed, her mother, Aysha, her 19-year-old brother, Rilvan and her 6-year-old brother, Rajaa. Her father sells jewelry at weekend trade shows around the South and Midwest. Rifqa shared a bedroom with Rilvan. Rent for the apartment: $850 a month.

They’re here because of her.

The Barys are from Galle on the southern coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. When Rifqa was 5 she fell on a toy airplane that pierced the cornea of her right eye. Scar tissue built up over the next couple of years. Doctors told the Barys they might have to remove the eye. So they went to New York in 2000 for medical treatment.

Four years later they moved here in large part because of the schools. The school district of suburban New Albany is considered one of Ohio’s best. It’s 80 percent white, 9 percent Asian, 6 percent black. The campus with its red-brick buildings and tall white columns feels almost collegiate. Average income in the district: $185,000 a year.

At New Albany High, where last year she was a sophomore, Rifqa was on the honor roll and the junior varsity cheerleading team. She was known as a diligent student in the classrooms, and as a friendly, even gregarious presence in the hallways.

At home, her mother cooked traditional dishes, curries and rice with dahl, but Rifqa preferred chili from Wendy’s and soup from Panera.

On weekends, she shopped for clothes at stores like Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch, spending money she made babysitting and waitressing at the Chinese restaurant in a nearby strip mall.

At home during dinner, over the past few years, she stopped speaking Tamil, her family’s native language. Her family spoke Tamil to her, and she spoke English to them. When her grandparents called from Sri Lanka, her mother says, she spoke only “small, small words.”

The Bary parents prayed five times a day. Rilvan did not. Neither did Rifqa.

In 2006, she made a baby­sitting flyer that said she was Christian; in 2007, her father found in her room Rick Warren’s Christian bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life.

This sometimes made her parents sad, but not mad, they say — their children were growing up in America, not Sri Lanka, so they understood.

Her father says he told her: “You know, Rifqa, you have a brain of your own, you do whatever is good for you, but you were born Muslim — it’s your responsibility to learn that, too.”

Rifqa was always well-behaved — she didn’t even have a curfew, her parents say, because there was no need. In the months before she ran, though, her behavior changed. She turned sullen and stopped spending as much time with her little brother. She started locking the door to her room.

Tensions crested in the spring.

Rifqa says her parents confronted her about her Christianity — her father angrily, her mother tearfully. They threatened to kill her, she says, or take her back to Sri Lanka.

Her parents say that’s not true. They both say the confrontations had to do with her overall behavior — late-night Facebooking with guys in their 20s and what seemed to be a new set of friends whom they didn’t know.

One night, they say, she stormed out of the apartment.

“It’s my life!” she said.

Her friends noticed a change, too: On Facebook, Rifqa Bary became Anna Michelle Matthew.

• • •

Rifqa was forced to live a secret life of sorts, she has said — to friends, in court files, to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — praying and reading her Bible in the middle of the night in her room or the bathroom or the porch on the back of her family’s apartment.

Her parents say they knew.

At school, meanwhile, she did nothing to hide her faith.

“She’d read her Bible in class,” said Tony Hou, a junior at New Albany. “She brought her Bible with her just about everywhere.”

It became, he said, one of the things she was known for — her blue Bible, her name written on the front, in shiny silver letters.

Last fall, she listened to an online sermon given by Jamal Jivanjee, a local evangelical pastor who also was a Muslim who became a Christian. She e-mailed him. They met at Starbucks.

And at some point she started reading the Facebook writings of an Ohio State University student and an aspiring pastor named Brian Michael Williams.

In Williams’ writings, evolution is bunk, abortion is murder, Armageddon is near. He said he needed “an army of prayer warriors” for the end of days.

Rifqa grew to consider Williams a friend and a mentor. She started last spring proselytizing students at school. Her father scolded her for it, he said, because it was against school rules.

At home, when Rilvan had friends over, she started coming out of her room and telling them about the Bible, saying they were listening to “demonic” music.

“She was really aggressive about it,” said David Sharpe, who last year graduated with Rilvan.

Last spring was when Rifqa also started exchanging Facebook messages with Beverly Lorenz. She and her husband, Blake Lorenz, are the pastors at Orlando’s Global Revolution Church, an evangelical, end-times group that says it’s “about changing our culture.”

Brian Williams baptized Rifqa in June, in Big Walnut Creek at Hoover Dam park, not far from her parents’ apartment. She cried and laughed and kept falling over so Williams had to hold her up.

“After she was submerged in the water,” said Hou, her New Albany classmate, “she pretty much fainted, she pretty much passed out, literally, from joy.”

Rifqa wrote in her journal.

“I am called to the nations,” she said. “Send me to the deepest darkest places into the pagan land.”

“Lord is preparing me.”

“Enemy is after me.”

• • •

Some of her friends got a Facebook message from her in the middle of July.

“She basically said: ‘My bags are being packed,’ ” said Jivanjee, the pastor. “She said: ‘The day that I have dreaded is now upon me. Pray for me that I would not deny my faith.’ ”

Sunday, July 19, 2:30 a.m.: Her mother woke up and saw her out on the porch. Her mother begged her to come inside. Her father was out of town for work.

Rifqa came into the living room.

Pictures of her in her cheerleading uniform were on the top of the TV next to the trophy she won in 2003 in an oratorical contest. On the wall in a frame held together by tape was a poster with some verses from the Koran.

“In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Say: O you that reject faith! I do not worship that which you worship, nor do you worship that which I worship. … To you be your way and to me mine.”

Rifqa shut her door.

Sometime between then and 8 a.m., she took her toothbrush and her travel pack, wrote a note to her parents, and left.

She took a right on Longrifle Road and a left on Mardela Drive and went to a small brown house a third of a mile away. The Hopsons live there. Their daughter is one of her friends. They knew she was coming. They knew where she was going.

Later that day Williams picked her up and drove her downtown to the Greyhound station. He knew where she was going.

So did people in Orlando. Global Revolution director of operations John Law bought her ticket, she later told FDLE, and the Lorenzes had decorated a room just for her in their home.

Her mother walked into her room Sunday morning. No Rifqa. She called her husband. He came home early from his trip. He called Rifqa’s cell phone. Straight to voice mail. He called some of her friends. Nobody knew where she was. He called the police.

In her room they found some books she had been reading. Did God Forsake Jesus? The Prayer of Jabez for Teens. Page 55: “Are you ready to ask God for something huge, something outrageous?”

They found the note she left.

“Jesus is my saviour, I cannot deny Him, nor will I ever. I pray that you find His mercy and forgiveness just as I have. Love you both dearly.”

No sign of her Monday. No sign of her Tuesday. On Wednesday, her father went to the Golden Valley Chinese restaurant, where she was scheduled to start work at 5. Maybe she would show. He sat at a table by the window. He looked out at a bank, at a gas station, at traffic on Sunbury Road.

It was 4:45.

It was 5.

It was 5:15.

Rifqa had been in Florida for almost two days.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

What’s next?

The next hearing in the case is Tuesday in Orlando. A Florida judge is expected to talk in court with an Ohio judge to discuss the possibility of sending her back to her home state.

About the story

This story is based on court records, police reports, Brian Williams’ diary, reporting in Orlando and Ohio, interviews with Rifqa Bary’s friends and family, and her words — written on her laptop, said to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and spoken into video cameras and then disseminated on YouTube.

Michael Kruse

This is another excellent article by Michael Kruse on the Fathima Rifqa Bary case. It explores the charges made by anti-Islam bloggers as well as Rifqa herself. He also gets the opinions of various Islamic scholars on the issues that have been raised by the case, separating truth from fiction.

How Real Are Runaway’s Fears of Being Killed for Becoming Christian?

Will religious runaway Rifqa Bary be killed if she’s sent home to Ohio?

Bary is the 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida in July because she’s terrified that her Muslim family has to murder her due to her conversion to Christianity.

Authorities in both states say there’s no “credible” threat against her. Investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement say her fear is “subjective and speculative.” Her parents say they don’t want to hurt her and just want her back.

She’s living with a foster family as a court in Orlando tries to decide what to do with her. The next hearing is Monday afternoon. Attorneys for her parents are expected to argue that the case should be shifted to Ohio.

This is a good time to pause for a bit and take another look at her Aug. 10 interview with local TV. It remains this ongoing story’s primary source.

“I’m fighting for my life!” she said in her nearly seven-minute interview with Orlando’s WFTV. “You guys don’t understand!”

Let’s understand then.

• • •

“Imagine the honor in killing me,” she said. “It’s in the Koran.”

It’s not. Here’s what is.

One verse: “If any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.”

Another verse: “If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them.”

Those are parts of the two verses Robert Spencer cites to support his belief that Bary will be killed because Islam says she must be killed.

Spencer blogs at JihadWatch.org. He’s written nine books, with titles like Stealth Jihad, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Two of them have been New York Times bestsellers. In Stealth Jihad, published last year, he writes of the coming “Islamic conquest of North America” and urges this country’s schools to stop “the empty rhetoric of inclusion and multiculturalism.”

Here are some other things the Koran says.

One verse: “Let there be no compulsion in religion.”

Another verse: “Show kindness to parents, and to family.”

The Koran, like many other holy texts, is long, complicated and at times contradictory, and over centuries different people have had and continue to have different interpretations.

Bary has committed apostasy. That means she was a Muslim and now she’s not.

“The Koran condemns apostasy,” said Jonathan Berkey, a professor of Islamic studies at Davidson College in North Carolina, “but the verses about seizing and slaying ‘renegades’ concerned enemies of the prophet Muhammad’s state, people who posed a political or even military threat.

“For others,” he said, “the Koran implies that apostasy is something that God will punish.”

Not people. Not in this life.

• • •

“They have to kill me,” she said.

Let’s acknowledge this right here: There’s no way to know for sure if her parents, or anyone else for that matter, will kill her.

But this can be said with certainty: They don’t have to.

This idea, though, comes from sharia, or Islamic law. There is one Koran but there is no single sharia. It comes from many sources, including the Koran, and is “more like a discussion by Muslim scholars concerning the duties a Muslim should perform,” said Valerie Hoffman, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Illinois.

Most Muslim jurists say apostasy is punishable by death — but not all of them. It is “the heart of a burning debate among modern Muslims,” said Sherman Jackson, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Michigan.

“There are lots of liberal Muslims today who feel that there should never be any execution of people who convert from Islam to another religion,” Hoffman said. “You can’t say Islam says this or Islam says that.”

Also important is the fact that sharia is law only to the extent that specific governments choose to enforce it as such. Some governments in the Muslim world do. Most don’t. Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world. Its government does not.

“Sharia is just not applied very often, particularly in the modern world,” Berkey said. “There are few places in the Muslim world where much at all of sharia is applied with the force of law.”

Apostasy executions are rare.

An official at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom told the New York Times in 2006 that he knew of four: one in Sudan, in 1985; two in Iran, in 1989 and 1998; and one in Saudi Arabia, in 1992.

In the case of Bary, which government would order her execution for apostasy — Ohio, Florida, the United States?

“The allegation that Muslim parents would be required to kill an apostate daughter is absurd,” said Carl Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina, “particularly if there is no evidence to back this up besides the daughter’s statement.”

• • •

“I don’t know if you know about honor killings,” she said.

Honor killings are real. The United Nations Population Fund says there could be as many as 5,000 a year worldwide.

Honor killings are usually when a man in a family kills a woman in that family because of some shame the man believes she brought on the family. It typically involves some sort of perceived sexual impropriety, anything from promiscuity to adultery to dating the wrong guy or dressing too “Western.” Sometimes, women are killed after they’re raped.

Honor killings happen mostly in the Muslim world. In the last couple of years, though, there was a double murder some called an honor killing in Texas, there was one in Georgia, there was another in upstate New York.

But honor killings and apostasy executions are not the same thing.

“This is a basic mistake of conflating two things,” said Brett Wilson, a professor of Islamic studies at Macalester College in Minnesota.

Ernst, the professor from UNC, called honor killings “a local or tribal custom,” having far more to do with culture than religion — “more or less equivalent,” he wrote in an e-mail, “to the so-called ‘unwritten law,’ honored by judges in Texas at least through the 1950s, which considered it legitimate for a husband to kill his wife and her lover if he discovered them in a compromising situation.”

• • •

To believe absolutely that the girl from Ohio will be killed if she’s sent home, you have to believe that there’s no variation in the interpretation of Islam — no Sunni, no Shia, no Sufism — among the approximately billion and a half Muslims worldwide, stretching from Southeast Asia to Africa to the Middle East to Europe to Florida and Ohio. Saying all Muslims have exactly the same rigid and literal beliefs and act on those beliefs in exactly the same ways is like saying the same thing about Christians.

Times news researchers Shirl Kennedy and Will Short Gorham contributed to this report. Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

Fathima Rifqa Bary

This case gets stranger by the day as more and more is revealed about the facts surrounding what actually happened.

Fathima Rifqa Bary claimed under the arm of an Evangelical pastor that her father wanted to kill her; according to new reports, it is now clear that she also secretly fancied herself as a prophet a la Esther in the Bible. Now as kooky as this seems to most of us, in this country we have religious freedom as well as freedom of expression. Rifqa is welcome to join the long line of self-declared prophets that routinely pop up in this country, and we have a right to dismiss her as a brainwashed zealot. But when as a consequence of her new found zeal, she accuses, or is manipulated into accusing, another person of physically harming her and threatening her life then it becomes a  matter of public concern and a matter for the realm of law and order. As has been pointed out before, in both of those realms, Rifqa’s claims have  been not been found to hold water.

Interestingly, all the bloggers who have been in a frenzy over this case, attempting to prove Islam evil, and her family as medieval monsters by manipulating Rifqa into their coveted poster girl for “victim of Islam” have been discredited as they have had to turn to blatant lies to cover up their shameful attempt to destroy a family, but more on that later. Now, they have the extra egg on their face having to explain their enlightened convert’s outrageous claims of prophethood.

(We at LW think that Rifqa should not be demonized, glorified, apostasized, or prophecized — we think she is just another deeply troubled teen in sore need of professional help and hope she gets it. Shame on the Florida wackos and the Spencers and the Gellers who are exploiting her predicament for their own apocalyptic gutter causes.)

Fathima Rifqa Bary: Rifqa’s Personal Writings Indicate She Wants to be a Prophet

By Rene Stutzman and Amy L. Edwards

A Muslim girl who gave her heart to Jesus and then ran away to Christian evangelists in Orlando is not just any Christian. She is driven to save souls and prays that God will make her a prophet.

That’s according to writings she left behind when she fled.

“Lord is preparing me and He has me hidden … until the time is right,” Fathima Rifqa Bary wrote in a computer entry obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. “I am called to the nations. Send me to the deepest darkest places into the pagan land.”

Rifqa, 17, lives with a foster family in the Orlando area. She fled here, she insists, because her father threatened to kill her for abandoning Islam.

There’s no evidence of that, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and child-welfare officials in Columbus, but her claim and her wrenching, tearful YouTube video have prompted a firestorm of response. Thousands of people have weighed in, most insisting that if Florida officials send her back to Ohio, she’ll face certain death.

After Rifqa disappeared July 19, family members searched for clues about why she left. They found a computer flash drive and were stunned by what they read.

Contents of the flash drive were given by her father, Mohamed Bary, to the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Columbus, which shared parts of it with the Sentinel. Bary authorized publication.

Facebook preaching

The writings reveal a young woman who has embraced fundamentalist Christianity, who has stood outside an abortion clinic, duct tape across her mouth, alongside other protesters, and who has dreamed about Armageddon.

She must convert her family to Christianity, she wrote, including her older brother, Rilvan, 18, who worships “demonic music.” She must approach strangers and talk about Jesus. She saved a list of tips on how to do that:

“Do NOT be sneaky,” she wrote. “Sit down … get to know them … [Ask] would you mind for 5min if I share the gospel with you.”

She compared herself to the Old Testament heroine Esther and wrote out or saved religious pep talks.

“What does it take to be a prophet?” she wrote. “If I am a friend of God I can be prophetic. … You have to want it. Everyday pray for prophesy.”

Also on the flash drive are 250 pages of Facebook preaching and blogging by a young Columbus evangelist, Brian Michael Williams, 23, a former Ohio State University sociology student and Rifqa’s religious mentor, according to Bary.

Those are the writings Bary said troubled him most.

Williams prays with people by “laying my hands on the [computer] monitor and prophesying,” Williams wrote. He calls Planned Parenthood’s founder a racist Nazi, does not believe in evolution, speaks in tongues and criticizes mainstream Christians as following a “demonic doctrine” for being spiritually lethargic and failing to evangelize.

Williams baptized Rifqa in a creek near her home in June, he said, and helped her run away — unwittingly, he insists — by driving her to the Greyhound bus station in downtown Columbus.

To Rifqa’s father, Williams is a Christian extremist who turned Rifqa against her family and put lies in her head.

‘An inspiration to me’

Williams said that’s not true. Rifqa, he said, is the one who convinced him that because her father was a Muslim, Bary must kill her to preserve the family’s honor.

“I really appreciate Rifqa’s courage, and she’s been an inspiration to me,” Williams said in a phone interview.

Rifqa’s attorney, John Stemberger, and her guardian ad litem, Krista Bartholomew, were prohibited from commenting on the writings because of a gag order issued by Orange Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson.

In the past week, Rifqa’s parents have launched a new strategy to get their daughter returned to Ohio and placed in its foster-care system. There are now two juvenile-court cases pending in Columbus. Last week, her father filed one, asking a judge to declare his daughter incorrigible for repeatedly being disobedient.

Someone else on Monday filed a separate petition naming Rifqa, something that could give a Franklin County judge the authority to determine where and with whom she lives. The Franklin County, Ohio, Clerk of Courts Office would not identify the petitioner.

Amy L. Edwards of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Rene Stutzman can be reached at 407-650-6394 or rstutzman

@orlandosentinel.com.

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Fathima Rifqa Bary

We have been keeping track of the Fathima Rifqa Bary case which the anti-Muslim blogsphere has invested a lot in;  attempting to further their agenda of demonizing Islam and Muslims. The fact that they don’t care much about this young girl or her family is obvious, they just want to score points in their tireless crusade against Muslims.

It seems slowly but surely the case is being resolved and more and more facts are coming out. The anti-Muslim blogsphere lead by the wacky Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have been casting the family as fanatical, abusive, wanting to kill their daughter. They have cast unsubstantiated allegations on the local Mosque in Columbus, Ohio saying it is a haven for terrorists, even when it has been proved a bastion of moderation.

Now Mike Kruse of the St. Petersburg Times reports that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) have reported that there is “no evidence whatsoever of alleged abuse or threats of death made by the girl’s parents.”

ORLANDO — The attorney for the mother of Ohio religious runaway Rifqa Bary said in court here Thursday that results of a critical investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had come back “very favorable” and “with no evidence whatsoever” of alleged abuse or threats of death made by the girl’s parents.

Attorney Roger Weeden’s statement was the most contentious part of a hearing that was tense throughout. It came before the judge imposed gag orders in an attempt to restore some order to this controversial custody case turned culture war.

In addition to the gag order for the attorneys, Judge Daniel P. Dawson gave them 10 days to read the FDLE report — no more talking about that, either — and gave them 30 days to schedule the start of mediation for the Bary family.

“Let’s concentrate on getting this case resolved,” Dawson said. He set a pretrial hearing for Sept. 29.

Bary, 17, ran away last month from her family’s home near Columbus because she believes her Muslim parents have to kill her because of her conversion to Christianity. She traveled to Orlando by bus and stayed in the home of evangelical pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of the Global Revolution Church for more than two weeks before authorities knew where she was.

She’s been living with a Christian foster family since Aug. 10. At a hearing Aug. 21, Dawson, the judge, decided to keep her in Florida as custody issues get settled.

She was in court Thursday, wearing a brown sweater, a white dress and dark red nail polish. She said nothing, but did blow an occasional kiss to people she knew in the courtroom when she wasn’t reading her Bible.

The FDLE report was finished late Thursday morning. It includes a two-hour, 45-minute interview with Bary. The results of the report, based on what Weeden said in court, mirror the results of a recently completed abuse investigation done by Franklin County Children Services in Ohio. The conclusion up there: “unsubstantiated.”

Thursday, the state Department of Children Families asked that Bary no longer be allowed to visit with Blake and Beverly Lorenz. The judge agreed, although he let her continue to visit with the Lorenzes’ three children, who are in their 20s, and whom Bary considers “dear friends and spiritual advisers,” according to John Stemberger, her attorney.

In court, Krista Bartholomew, Bary’s guardian ad litem, said this case was “not a holy war,” but that’s what this has become over the last month.

Before the hearing on Thursday, outside in front of the courthouse, Tom Trento held a news conference, as he did before the first hearing. He’s from the Florida Security Council, an organization with the slogan of “Securing Florida Against Terror.” This time, though, he brought a pastor from Ohio and a pair of anti-Islam bloggers.

Jamal Jivanjee, the Ohio pastor, compared Rifqa Bary to Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who was killed by Nazis in World War II and whose diary became what many consider one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Robert Spencer, who writes on a blog called Jihad Watch, told reporters Islam was here to take over America. Pam Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog dismissed the results of the Franklin County investigation by saying things were “corrupt in Ohio.”

“Forget your political correctness!” she said.

Muslim businessman Mohammad Lutfi of Orlando yelled that Trento, Spencer and Geller were “conservative, right-wing militants” and “crusaders.”

Later, after the hearing, the attorneys made hasty exists, citing the new gag order. They hurried past the TV trucks, the reporters, the cameras, the shouting, red-faced, finger-pointing scrum.

Out in the busy, rain-slicked street in front of the courthouse, an appropriate metaphor for the day: a silver sedan screeched, skidded and slammed into the back of a navy blue Jeep.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-fathima-rifqa-bary-update-090309,0,4434694.story

One should thank Michael Kruse for his excellent reporting as well as accurately describing just who Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are; true agenda driven fanatics with an immeasurable amount of hate for Islam and Muslims.

Fathima Rifqa Bary

Mike Thomas is a journalist with the Orlando Sentinel which has been following and reporting on the Fathima Rifqa Bary case. The case of the young runaway has garnered much attention and many of the Islamophobes and anti-Muslims have much invested in it. Recently, conservative attorney John Stemberger who volunteered to represent Rifqa is now claiming that the real danger to the girl comes from the Mosque that her father attends.

Mike Thomas wanted to check if these sentiments were truly held by the neighbors of the Mosque or those who knew it, in a blog titled This is a Terrorist Mosque?, Thomas writes,

Attorney John Stemberger, who volunteered to represent Rifaq Bary, now claims that the real danger to the girl is her father’s mosque - the Noor Islamic Cultural Center - which he says is radical and has ties to terrorism.

I checked that with Rabbi Misha Zinkow, of Temple Israel, who spoke at the Noor center earlier this year at an inter-faith gathering.

“Their presence in the community is a positive one,” he said. “My interaction with the Muslim community has been very positive.”

I then asked the Rabbi if Columbus was a hotbed of Islamic extremism, another charge I frequently hear.

“I don’t think I would echo those sentiments,” he said.

The Noor Islamic Cultural Center also is a member of B.R.E.A.D., a social justice organization that includes a number of Protestant churches (Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc) , Catholic churches, Episcopalian churches, Temples and even the Unitarians.

Earlier this month, the Center had an interfaith session on homeland security.

Here is a promo the Center put out on Youtube. You can see all those middle-aged, crazy terrorists flipping burgers and hot dogs on the grill.

Mike Thomas shows that this Mosque is far from the “terrorist Mosque” that it is being painted as by Rifqa’s attorney, but will it be enough for those who are using the Fathima Rifqa Bary case for their own agenda to stop their crusade to paint the Mosque as a haven for terrorism whose members will kill Rifqa if returned?

LoonWatchers might have noticed that the anti-Muslim blogsphere with the likes of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have been reporting on this case constantly and have invested a lot in it, pushing full throttle to see to it that Fathima R. Bary does not end up with her parents and instead stays in Florida. Just today Robert Spencer posted a blog requesting his supporters to contact (pressure) the Florida court to keep Rifqa there. For them it is a high stakes game in the war against Muslims, so if Fathima is returned to her parents and the courts find that her life  is not in threat they will end up with major egg on their faces.

Fathima Rifqa Bary

There is a great editorial in the Fairfield County Weekly that highlights some of the obfuscation and outright prejudice that has resulted from the Fathima Rifqa Bary case. The girl who ran away from her house in Ohio and joined a Christian pastor’s family in Florida and is now being held in foster care until a judge can ascertain whether or not she should be returned home. She has made serious allegations against her family that they will kill her if she is returned to them.

The article points out some logical fallacies that many in the right wing propaganda media have been perpetuating such as the one from loony blogger Pamela Geller who says that according to a secret “source” of hers, she knows that Fathima’s father has forced her to wear hijab. How does this jibe with the fact that her father also allowed her to be a cheerleader? Or the fact that there isn’t one picture of her on the internet when she is with family or not where she is wearing a hijab?

You Don’t Have to Act like a Refugee

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Comments (2),By FCW Editorial

Rifqa Bary says that if she’s sent back to Ohio her father Mohamed will kill her. The 17-year-old, whose family immigrated from Sri Lanka, says she converted to Christianity from Islam four years ago, having picked up the religion from friends at school where she’s an honors student and cheerleader. This led to four years of beatings from her father and brothers, according the right-wing blogs salivating over Rifqa’s story.

“Beatings were random, violent, unprovoked,” writes Pamela Geller, the “citizen journalist, citizen soldier” who runs the site Atlas Shrugs. “Take, for example, when Rifqa and her father Mohammad [sic] were driving in the car. He would force her to wear the hijab, which she hated. In her discomfort she would slouch down, embarrassed, and her father would haul off and sock her in the face so that she never forgot to sit up straight in her costume.” Finally, her father told her he’d kill her for shaming the family, the teen says.

So Rifqa met a husband-and-wife Christian ministry team on Facebook, ran away from home and rode a Greyhound to their doorstep. Luckily, they live in Florida, a state where no dispute can ever be handled quickly or sensibly. (Elián González, Terry Schiavo, the 2000 recount.) She is now in foster care and a Florida juvenile court is deciding whether or not to send her back to Ohio.

Newsmax, WorldNetDaily and other conservative news sources have dedicated a lot of bandwidth to this story. Faux News is the most reliable national news source to more than glimpse at it, and only the Columbus Dispatch and Orlando Sentinel are dealing out real information.

This may be why no one has realized this story is full of holes. (Most of these people haven’t even noticed the Book of Genesis is full of holes.)

Mohamed Bary, a jeweler, beats his daughter for being embarrassed at wearing a hijab but also lets her prance around in a cheerleading uniform before a crowd every Friday night? We’ve never even seen a picture of Rifqa Bary in a hijab; in the myriad pictures floating around the Internet, she’s in typical Gap-ish clothing. She also had very unrestricted Facebook access for someone living in tyranny. She says she was at the bottom of a family dogpile for four years, but neither school officials in Ohio or the DCF agents in Florida have found as much as a bruise. The chief of the Columbus police missing persons bureau said Mr. Bary “comes across to me a loving, caring, worried father about the whereabouts and the health of his daughter.”

Christian crusaders haven’t dug up any dirt on Mr. Bary. They note a radical cleric and members of a terrorist cell have passed through Columbus area mosques and that a similar “honor killing” happened in Dallas — in other words, They’re all the same! They cite not the Koran but interpretations of Islamic law saying Bary would have to kill his daughter. Good thing she is not coming back to a family of Christians; their holy book says rebellious teens should be stoned (Deut. 21:18-21).

Clearly, this is not about Mohamed Bary; it’s about Islam and continuing irrational prejudice against it.

Rifqa Bary may not be lying exactly — the repressed memory fad proved confused people can come to believe terrible things about their families — but her story only adds up if you assume all Muslim men are secretly savages sworn to kill the infidel.

This is how the rabid right operates. Disregarding evidence or common sense, they follow the story line that makes sense to them — be it that Democrats are overhauling health care to implement “death panels” or that an ethnically complicated liberal in the White House must be a Kenyan citizen at the heart of a Dan Brown–sized conspiracy.

Here’s where this kind of thinking (of lack thereof) can lead us: The law-abiding Bary family is worried, reunion or no, it may have to return to Sri Lanka because of all the negative attention. So because of right-wing paranoia, a family may actually leave the U.S. because of religious persecution.

I wonder if Pamela Geller or her friends Sheikyermami and Robert Spencer have an answer to this?

Andrew Bostom and "Islamic Scholar" Robert Spencer

The Right-Wing anti-Muslim loonocracy and its minions in the blogosphere have secured a new cause to rally around, ironically enough it once again involves a Muslim minor, and in this regard, the anti-Muslim blogosphere really doesn’t have a good track record.  As recent history has proved, the last time the anti-Muslim blogosphere got this riled up about Muslim minors they turned up with egg on their faces.

After viewing a picture online of a wedding in Gaza, with grooms holding the hands of their young female cousins and nieces, the Islamophobia hit epic proportions with accusations of pedophilia being flung about wily-nily without nary a fact check. Tim Marshall, who reported on the wedding wrote about the Islamophobic response to the wedding,

Our report on this put it into context saying that it took place just a mile from the Israeli border and was a message from Hamas about its strength confidence and future fighters. Oh and that the brides were elsewhere. Pretty straightforward.

It never struck me for a moment that the little girls might later be described in the bloggersphere as the brides! How naive I am.

Dozens, and I mean dozens, of websites took the video of the event and wrote lurid stories about Hamas mass paedophilia with headlines about ‘450 child brides’, and endless copy about how disgusting this was, how it showed how depraved Islam is, et al, ad infinitum. Site after site jumped on the story, linking from one totally wrong load of rubbish to the next.

Robert Spencer was amongst the bloggers that falsely reported the incident as an instance of pedophilia.

The Fatimah Rifqa Bary Case

This time the case involves 17 year old Fatimah Rifqa Bary the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who came to America in 2000 seeking treatment for her vision problems. And before you could say “expediency,” the typical hordes of vultures started cycling, not so much out of interest for the girl’s welfare or the facts of the story, but as what they saw as a golden opportunity to reaffirm their caricature of Islam and Muslims as a dangerous cancer lurking within an otherwise good and pure Western civilization.

Fatimah, a cheerleader at New Albany High School ran away from her Columbus, Ohio home and ended up at the home of a pastor in Florida named Blake Lorenz. The details on how she ended up in Florida are still murky but what is clear is that she is leveling some very serious allegations against her family, including that she will be killed if she is returned to Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch reports in a story titled Girl Brainwashed, Parents say:

With Lorenz holding his arm tightly around her, Rifqa told WFTV-TV in Florida on Monday that she would be killed if she came home.

“They love God more than me; they have to do this,” she said. “I’m fighting for my life. You guys don’t understand.”

The family disputes these allegations and believes their daughter has been brainwashed. They state quite categorically that she is free to practice whatever faith she wants,

“We love her, we want her back, she is free to practice her religion, whatever she believes in, that’s OK,” her father, Mohamed Bary, said yesterday.

“What these people are trying to do is not right — I don’t think any religion will teach to separate the kids from their parents,” he said.

The family is not the only ones questioning the young girls allegations, Sgt. Jerry Cupp, the Chief of the Columbus Police Missing-Persons Bureau has said that Mohamed Bary (the father) “comes across to me as a loving, caring, worried father about the whereabouts and the health of his daughter.”

Robert Spencer, however, without knowing anything about the family — or the complete facts of the case — believes there is a slow motion honor killing in the making.  Starting from the pre-set conclusion that he derives from his personal study of Islam, he states that Islam requires the death penalty for apostates, and that it is a dead letter only “if no one cares or is able to enforce it in a particular case.” He writes this in response to Muslim scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni, a distinguished Law professor at DePaul University and President of the International Human Rights Law Institute, who wrote in 2006 that “a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law.”

Professor Bassiouni wrote this in 2006 when a man in Afghanistan was under the penalty of death for converting to Christianity. He wrote it as part of a document that was submitted to the court in Kabul. It has also been professor Bassiouni’s opinion as early as 1983. Professor Bassiouni responded to Spencer stating,

My position on apostasy has been expressed as early as 1983, namely that at the time of the Prophet it was not considered as only changing one’s mind but that it was the equivalent of joining the enemy and thus constituting high treason. In fact, at one time the Prophet had an agreement with the people in Makkah to return to Makkah all those who came from there, who wished to return after they had converted to Islam. I and a number of other distinguished Muslim scholars have long criticized the views of the four traditional Sunni schools…It is amazing to me how apparently little good faith and intellectual honesty you are displaying in your attack upon Islam and Muslims.

Professor Bassiouni’s position is pretty straight forward, he disagrees with those Muslims and non-Muslims who believe Islam legislates death for apostates and that his and many other distinguished Muslim scholars’ opinion is that it doesn’t. This is not so hard to grasp as LoonWatch contributor Barbel notes directly addressing Spencer,

In an obvious attempt to categorically associate this situation with all Muslims you wrote:

If she is sent back to her family, she could be killed, in accord with the death penalty that is prescribed by all Muslim sects and schools for those who leave Islam.

Surely, as a “scholar” you must be aware of this verse from the Muslim holy book, the Quran:

Those who believe, then reject Faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject Faith, and go on increasing in Unbelief,- God will not forgive them nor guide them on the Way.

How would it be possible to reject faith twice or go on increasing in unbelief if one was suppose to have been killed after the first rejection?  Furthermore, what purpose would withholding guidance have if the person had a death sentence anyway?

Robert, regardless of what you might want us to believe, Islamic scholars are NOT in consensus nor have they ever been in consensus over the apostasy issue.  Historically, the sentence of death was only applied to people who converted from the religion AND committed espionage. Consider what the 10th century scholar Shams al-Din al-Sarakhsi had to say:

The prescribed penalties are generally not suspended because of repentance, especially when they are reported and become known to the head of state.  The punishment of highway robbery, for instance, is not suspended because of repentance; it is suspended only by the return of property to the owner prior to arrest. … Renunciation of the faith and conversion to disbelief is admittedly the greatest of offenses, yet it is a matter between man and his Creator, and its punishment is postponed to the day of judgment. Punishments that are enforced in this life are those which protect the people’s interests, such as just retaliation, which is designed to protect life.

More recently, the contemporary Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan (a man you have repeatedly tried to defame) had this to say:

I have been criticized about this in many countries.  My view is the same as that of Sufyan Al-Thawri, an 8th-century scholar of Islam, who argued that the Koran does not prescribe death for someone because he or she is changing religion. Neither did the Prophet himself ever perform such an act. Many around the Prophet changed religions. But he never did anything against them.  There was an early Muslim, Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh, who went with the first emigrants from Mecca to Abyssinia.  He converted to Christianity and stayed, but remained close to Muslims.  He divorced his wife, but he was not killed.

I know this is probably still not enough for you, so here are over a hundred more Islamic scholars who are against the death penalty for apostasy.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that this girl (or many others who are in similar situations) isn’t at serious risk.  She very may well be.  All it means is that the straw man version of Islam that you have created only serves to ignite more hatred and promote your own personal ideological agenda.

This highlights the absurdity that is Robert Spencer, an absurdity that projects an ominous pre-set conclusion on any heated situation that arises dealing with Muslims and castigates “all Islam” in the process without acknowledging the polyvalent interpretations that exist or the context.

Robert Spencer’s Hypocrisy on Religious Freedom

What further makes the Fatimah Rifqah Bary case one which exposes Spencer and his cronies is the hypocrisy of it all. This is being painted as a freedom of religion case, specifically the freedom to change one’s religion, but it seems in this department Spencer sounds like the pot calling the kettle black since he supports those who would restrict the freedom of religion of Muslims.

As we have written on extensively before, one of the close comrades of Spencer is neo-fascist European politician Geert Wilders. Spencer is on the record stating his admiration for Wilders who he sees as the only European politician standing up for Western Civilization.

"Under his wing": Geert Wilders & Robert Spencer

Wilders is by all accounts an odious individual who calls for the out right denial of religious freedom to Muslims. He has called for the banning of the Quran which he compares to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he has also stated that, “Freedom of Religion should not apply to Islam.” He is also working to end Muslim immigration and strip Muslims in Dutch society of their citizenship.

This is Spencers friend. Spencer has also participated in forums with Wilders, conferences, writes articles about him, has interviewed him and cites him often. In one article Spencer wrote in response to CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper he says,

I didn’t actually have anything to do with that conference in Florida, but Hoop could just say straight out that I support Wilders. And so should anyone who holds dear the Western values that are threatened by Islamic supremacists.

So is the Fatimah Rifqah Bary case another instance of Robert Spencer jumping the gun or is her life legitimately under threat? The courts will resolve that question, but Spencer has shot his credibility in this department with a track record of obfuscation, innuendo and misrepresentation and is wholly unreliable.

Will Spencer also back track on his position that “all Muslim sects and schools of thought” legislates the death penalty for apostates and concede that there is a valid counter opinion such as the one articulated by Professor Bassiouni? Finally, will Spencer quit the charade that he is a democrat that cares for Freedom of Religion when in fact his position is to support those who would deny religious freedom?

It seems that per his practice, Spencer seized on this case to further his well-oiled agenda that Islam is evil and Muslims are backward. As the story of Fatimah Rifqah Bary plays out we will see more clearly that the anti-Muslims are not motivated by her welfare but rather to confirm their warped hatred of Islam and Muslims.

Words of Ginny Brown-Waite Wisdom: “Except for Timothy McVeigh every terrorist has been a Moslem.” Way to go Ginny, you sure paid attention in school.