Leave Islam

AFDI/SIOA Historic Human Rights Townhall SRO In Defense of Freedom: Ex-Muslims Finally Heard

 

Standing room only

Photo: Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and panel of former Muslims

From left, Mohammed Asghar: Originally from Bangladesh, ex-Muslim author and an authority on the Qur'an. Nonie Darwish: Ex-Muslim and human rights activist raised in Gaza; director of Former Muslims United; author of Now They Call Me Infidel; Cruel and Usual Punishment; and The Devil We Don't Know. Amani Mustafa: Ex-Muslim from Egypt, TV producer and host of a Christian show, The Muslim Woman, appealing to Muslim women in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Her show reaches 300 million households globally with 50 million viewers per live program. Ibn Warraq: Pakistani ex-Muslim and renowned scholar; author of Why I Am Not A Muslim; The Quest for the Historical Muhammad; Leaving Islam; Why the West Is Best; and many other books. Ramin Parsha: Iranian NajatTV host who was born and raised as a devout Shiite Muslim is Shiraz, Iran. He is associate Pastor at Nejat Church with Pastor Reza Safa, who also was an Islamic supremacist in Iran and is now one of the most prominent ex-Muslim Christian pastors in America. Dr. Bushra Qader: Originally from Iraq, she is an activist for the rights of former Muslims. Walid Shoebat: Palestinian former jihad terrorist and member of the Muslim Brotherhood; now a Christian and a peace activist.

Watch Shoebat's speech -- yes, it's all that

Happy warriors include Eric Allen Bell (second from right) and Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady, to the left of Bell)

Walid Shoebat, Jamie Glazov of FrontPage Magazine, and Robert Spencer

Joseph Nassralla, Egyptian Coptic Christian leader, WAY TV

Walid Shoebat holding court

Geller, Dr. Bushra Qader, Spencer

Amani Mustafa brought the audience to tears. She is an ex-Muslim from Egypt, TV producer and host of a Christian show, The Muslim Woman, appealing to Muslim women in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Her show reaches 300 million households globally with 50 million viewers per live program.

Ibn Warraq, Pakistani ex-Muslim and renowned scholar; author of Why I Am Not A Muslim; The Quest for the Historical Muhammad; Leaving Islam; Why the West Is Best; and many other books.

With an unprecedented and unexpected turnout, freedom-lovers thronged to the Marriott Manhattan Beach AFDI/SIOA "Summer Night for Human Rights" town hall, as a standing-room-only crowd heard some of the world's most courageous and unheralded voices for freedom speak up for the human rights of Muslim apostates and all those victimized by Sharia.

As Hamas-CAIR held its "Islamophobia" hate propaganda fest right down the street, which we understand was sparsely attended by an decidedly unenthusiastic and dutiful crowd (probably largely there on orders), our joy-filled and happy army of warriors called them out on their hypocrisy and deceit. Where is Hamas-CAIR, where is the ACLU, where are the international human rights organizations, on the rights of those who wish to leave Islam? Their silence is deafening, and monstrous. And it falls to us to speak out.

Lovers of freedom and patriots were riveted by the humble testimony of former Muslims who were finally given the platform they deserve in order to tell their stories. Speakers included world-renowned, unsung and unknown heroes who faced enormous hardship and alienation and danger. Another was stabbed multiple times and almost killed. And that was par for the course in his native "moderate" Morocco. He was saved by our AFDI/SIOA "Leaving Islam" bus ad, which he saw on a New York City street and was amazed that someone was articulating his own plight: he wanted to leave Islam, but there was a fatwa on his head, and he had nowhere to go. He found help by following up the contact info on the ad.

One after another they spoke: the moving Amani Mustafa, the erudite Ibn Warraq, the riveting Walid Shoebat, and so many others. Some were choking back tears, some inarticulate and struggling with the language but deeply compelling in their staunch commitment to the truth. Some of these ex-Muslims had never been given the opportunity to speak before. They struggled with their emotions as much as with their words, but were all the more powerful for their depth and sincerity -- and they were grateful for the opportunity to finally be heard and to say the words that in any Muslim country would have gotten them killed immediately. All spoke with the same voice, all enunciated the same message, the same pressing warning to clueless and freedom-assuming Americans -- Americans who are greeting the devil at the door with a welcoming martini.

 

Buses to Roll! Victory for Freedom of Speech and Religious Freedom! CAIR Defeated

Leaving Islam Ads on the road again!

I am thrilled to report that the legal matter with Miami Dade Transit has been settled. Not only will FDI and SIOA's buses be going back up, but another twenty will be added to the original buy and rolling down the sweet streets of Collins Avenue.

This is a huge victory on the constitutional issues. This is the work of SIOA. Have you joined our Facebook group yet? Go here now! Have you made a contribution to the bus campaign? Robert and I want to roll this out nationwide. We have no big money, big donors. We aren't Daniel Pipes or CSP or FDD -- we are two people fighting with all the gusto we can muster.

Every dime you contribute goes into these initiatives like FDI at CPAC (buy the DVD), the Aqsa Parvez Memorial,  Geert Wilders at CPAC -- these were actions that I developed and executed with my indispensable colleague Robert Spencer.

But we cannot do it without you. CANNOT.  I am not CAIR with 50 million in dirty Saudi dollars. I am the individual -- trying to change the course of human events. We make things happen. We are on the offense in this war on the West.

Help us. Make a Paypal contribution NOW to  [email protected] (still waiting on a 501c status for SIOA).

We are going nationwide with this campaign, we need dough for buses and lawyers. Ads will be back up May 3rd.

Here is the our lawyer, David Yerushalmi's, statement: Case Demonstrates that CAIR is a Fraudulent Civil Rights Organization Lobbying on behalf of Hamas and the OIC:

April 21, 2010 – Miami, Florida: When the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressured the Miami-Dade Country Transit Authority to yank bus panel ads contracted and paid for by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of the Freedom Defense Initiative because the ads were “offensive to Muslims”, the two activists turned to the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. for help. Mr. Yerushalmi joined forces with the Thomas More Law Center and the two law firms began preparing a federal complaint alleging breach of contract and a violation of Ms. Geller’s and Mr. Spencer’s First Amendment Rights.

The bus ad, which appears immediately below, began running on Tuesday, April 13th. Just two days later, on Thursday, after pressure from CAIR, the bus ads had already been pulled down and Mr. Yerushalmi’s clients received notice of the ad contract termination through media reports on Friday.

CAIR, as it typically does, issued nationwide press releases and blasted emails to tens of thousands of outlets on Friday crowing over its “victory” of suppressing free speech on the grounds that the ads promoted “bigotry”. Newspaper and other media stories in the Miami Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, Fox Business News, and NBC ran blindly with the CAIR-generated story on Friday with headlines like: “Miami-Dade Transit Throws Islamic Ad Under the Bus.”

Ironically, CAIR, which has been named by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI as a Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror fund raising trial—a trial which culminated in guilty verdicts for all of the Muslim Brotherhood defendants—claims it is “the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization.”

“It is ironic,” Mr. Yerushalmi noted, “that the media allows CAIR to claim the mantle of a civil rights organization when it embraces censorship by the government all in the service of the “anti-blasphemy” platform of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), which calls for international legislation providing for criminal penalties against anyone who “insults Islam and its prophet Mohammed.”

Mr. Yerushalmi added that the Center for Security Policy, a leading Washington D.C. national security think tank run by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, has documented that CAIR is an illegal, unregistered foreign agent of the OIC, receiving millions of dollars from Islamic countries in order to pursue their political goals in the U.S. (See the CAIR Observatory at www.cairunmasked.org.) Mr. Yerushalmi is General Counsel to the Center for Security Policy.

By Friday, the day after the bus ads had been pulled, Mr. Yerushalmi and his co-counsel Robert Muise were prepared to go into federal court early the next week. A teleconference was arranged first with the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s office, which took place Monday afternoon. After listening to Mr. Yerushalmi’s brief, the county attorneys conceded the ads should not have been pulled. By Tuesday, Mr. Yerushalmi had negotiated a full and complete retraction of the contract termination with a NY-based attorney for CBS Outdoor. Not only would the original 10 king-sized ads go back up on the Transit Authority buses, but CBS would run an additional 20 king-sized bus ads for the same original contract price.

The new agreement was inked and signed by Wednesday, April 21. The ads are expected to go back up by ____.

“This is not just an important day for the First Amendment. It is a ‘teaching moment’ to the media and to others in various government agencies who come across CAIR,” Mr. Yerushalmi added. “CAIR is a criminal organization with ties to Hamas and other jihadists. This is not my opinion but the considered view of the U.S. Attorney’s office, the FBI, and the federal courts, all based on the evidence CAIR has never refuted. If you find yourself on the same side of an issue with CAIR, you’d better examine the facts a bit more closely. You’re likely in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, even if only unwittingly.”

Mr. Yerushalmi is currently prosecuting two separate fraud cases against CAIR brought by Muslim American former CAIR clients who were defrauded by CAIR.

About David Yerushalmi, Esq.

David Yerushalmi has been practicing law for more than 26 years. He is a litigator specializing in securities law, public policy relating to national security, and public interest law. Mr. Yerushalmi is licensed and practices in Washington D.C., New York, California, and Arizona.

UPDATE  Robert has a great post here.

Geller: The Denial Of Free Speech, Human Events

Don't miss this in  in Human Events on the suppression of free speech in Miami:

Free Speech Denied In Miami

by Pamela Geller

Bus ads pulled for being "offensive to Islam."

In an outrageous denial of free speech rights, Miami-Dade Transit last week forced the removal of a “Leaving Islam” ad campaign on Miami buses because the ads might be “offensive to Islam.”

The Freedom Defense Initiative, the new organization I have begun with bestselling author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highlighting, and the group Stop Islamization of America started the ad campaign as a defense of religious freedom.

Our ad asked, “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers! RefugefromIslam.com.”

It was the first time anyone offered public help to people threatened under Islam’s death penalty for apostasy.

Go read it all.

Don't miss this in  in Human Events on the suppression of free speech in Miami:

Free Speech Denied In Miami

by Pamela Geller

Bus ads pulled for being "offensive to Islam."

In an outrageous denial of free speech rights, Miami-Dade Transit last week forced the removal of a “Leaving Islam” ad campaign on Miami buses because the ads might be “offensive to Islam.”

The Freedom Defense Initiative, the new organization I have begun with bestselling author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highlighting, and the group Stop Islamization of America started the ad campaign as a defense of religious freedom.

Our ad asked, “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers! RefugefromIslam.com.”

It was the first time anyone offered public help to people threatened under Islam’s death penalty for apostasy.

Go read it all.