Rifqa Bary and the Noor Mosque

The Center for Security Policy– along with the Florida Security Council and Nonie Darwish, bestselling author of Cruel and Usual Punishment— hosted a blogger conference call to discuss the latest developments in the plight of 17-year-old Rifqa Bary.  Ms. Bary– a Muslim who converted to Christianity — fled her family in Ohio out of fear that, in accordance with what authoritative Islam calls shariah, they would take her life as punishment for leaving the Islamic faith.  As was discussed on the call, this fear has been reinforced by the fact that her family’s mosque, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, has been tied to terrorism and jihadist ideology from its inception.  Ms. Bary has fled to Florida where her attorneys are trying to prevent state authorities from sending her back to her family and possibly her death.

The transcript of the conference call is as follows:

FRANK GAFFNEY: I’m pleased to welcome you all to a very informal and somewhat last minute update on the Rifqa Bary story, a story that I imagine all of you are familiar with in at least its broad outlines. But we wanted to sort of update you all on what’s happening up literally to the minute in Florida.

What we know about what’s going on in Ohio. Specifically at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center and in the community that attends that mosque, including Rifqa Bary’s family. And then, more generally, what is the crime, to use that term advisedly, the crime of which Rifqa Bary is accused under what authoritative Islam calls sharia, and its implications for her–should she, against her wishes, be returned to that community in Ohio. Or perhaps by her family to Sri Lanka.

I’ll be introducing in a moment Tom Trento from the Florida Security Council, who’s been doing an extraordinary job on the ground in Orlando and across the state of Florida, helping people there understand this case and stay abreast of it and then Noni Darwish of Arabs for Israel, also I’m very pleased to say, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy now. Noni is herself an apostate. And she will be speaking momentarily about her own experiences and what Rifqa Bary is up against, according to sharia.

Let me just say, by way of, sort of overview–this case is a compelling story in its own right. As I’m sure you all appreciate. A seventeen-year old woman, considered under Florida law to be still a minor–claims to have been repeatedly abused by her family. There have been some reports that, in fact, she came to the United States as a result of having been blinded by her brother and needed medical attention. The young woman faced an even more serious threat when her parents discovered that she was a convert to Christianity. And according to Rifqa, and you probably have seen her on Youtube or heard her personal accounts of these threats her father then issued to her to kill her.

She fled to Florida to the refuge that was offered to her through some pastors there whom she had met through Facebook. And subsequently, when her family discovered her whereabouts, they began proceedings in Florida to try to compel her to return to their community in the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio.

There’s a very important new report that was introduced into evidence by her lawyer just yesterday about the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, as I said, to which her family belonged. I think you cannot help but be impressed if you read that, by a sense of the virulence of that mosque and the degree to which someone who has, according to sharia, become a candidate for a capital offense and an execution, that is in extreme jeopardy if she is returned to that community to say nothing if she’s sent back to Sri Lanka. So this is a compelling story.

But what I just wanted to add to this is I think this is a microcosmic example of a much larger problem that we now are confronting in America. Not only of a small, but growing number of honor killings. We have not gotten to the point where this is as rife as it has become in other Western countries, but it is the beginning, unfortunately, I’m afraid, of behavior that we’re trapped with. That in Britain, where for example, recently, there were a hundred and ten murders reopened by the law enforcement authorities on the grounds that they believe they are now, need to be investigated in connection with honor killings. But I just wanted to say that I think it is not just in the neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio that sharia is being practiced in this fashion. It is not just this young woman who is at risk, but indeed, all of us are. And why I think this episode hopefully will come out in a way that spares this young woman’s life, but hopefully will also be a real teaching moment for all of us about the nature of this intolerant program, this indeed seditious program of authoritative Islam called sharia and what it has in mind for all those who not only deviate from the faith but do fail to submit to it.

So with that, let me turn it over to Tom Trento of the Florida Security Council who has been doing great work on this particular case and helping the people of Florida and indeed across the country understand this sort of threat from sharia.

TOM TRENTO: All right, thanks Frank. We were a little slow getting into this at the Florida Security Council for a couple of reasons. But once we started looking at the analytical material and the watershed element that this case of this young, seventeen-year old girl has in the state of Florida, then we unleashed our assets and capabilities and I’ve been living this now for the past three weeks, twenty-four hours a day.

My name’s Tom Trento, I direct the Florida Security Council. A small think tank/activism organization that educates people on the issue of Islamic terrorism and develops methods, methodologies, and educational courses to deal with all of this. And I have not seen anything as significant in a long time on the battle of the East and the West as this case. It’s critically important, notwithstanding the fact of this little girl’s life that’s in the balance.

I’ll have a short statement on the document that came out, a blockbuster document, that establishes definitively that the place where her parents worship is a terrorist-related community and when you study–and this is a challenge to the bloggers and media here– when you study in-depth these issues, you have to connect a community to the family. You can’t bifurcate that, which some are trying to do. The most important point I could make is that it’s essential for each person to study this document.

Now what we have done, the Florida Security Council, we’ve taken the Noor Islamic Cultural Center report, handed out, released yesterday by John Stemberger, Rifqa Bary’s attorney, and we’ve been working all day and all night and we’ve illustrated that document with some graphics, some charts, some photographs of people at the mosque that are known terrorists. So for the investigative journalists on this call, if you want to dig into something, go to our website. This is exclusively on our website. It has not been released until this second. We’re releasing it on this call. Floridasecuritycouncil.org. This was obviously not in the report that was handed in yesterday to the court and publicized, but we’re providing it for you so that you can become investigators more so than you could be without these visuals.

Simply stated, I’ll make four points about this mosque, and then hand it over to Noni to bring in the theocratic and the Islamic jurisprudence element of honor killing. The basic thrust of this report says that the guy who started the mosque and runs it is a bad actor. Hani Sakir is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. I know this sounds like Hollywood movie stuff, but folks this is real life Islamic terror-related people in the United States of America in Ohio. Hani Sakir is running this show and he’s a bad actor.

Number two, the educational leader, the resident academic Islamic scholar, Salan Sultan, who no longer–and we’re trying to get the right configuration of his existence here–he’s out of the country and he’s not allowed back in at this point, because of extensive terrorist ties. He was the leading thinker, preacher, teacher at the Noor mosque where Mr. and Mrs. Bary and the kids attended. Twenty-five minutes from where they lived and they passed five other mosques on the way and they went there cause Rifqa Bary’s dad said, I want you kids to learn original Islam. Read that "radical Islam," if you will.

The third point is that this mosque enjoys bringing in radical Islamic scholars like Sharazh Wahazh who’s all over the United States. And has all kinds of terrorist ties.

And the fourth point is that our Federal Bureau of Investigation currently is investigating this mosque for its ties to the Somali gathering of kids and sending them over for jihad and training them. So everybody has complained historically about our intelligence assets and agencies not connecting the dots. The challenge today to those on this phone–and I’ll be having a press conference like I did two weeks ago outside the courthouse–one o’clock Thursday–is to earn the degree you have on your wall about being a journalist and an investigator–the dots are there. We need people to go and start examining this place and connecting the dots.

Once you do that, you will realize, as we have, and we’re passionate about this and we make no apology for that, that the least safe place on the face of the earth for Rifqa Bary is anywhere near the state of Ohio. She’s much safer here and we will do all we can in terms of intellectual work, the intelligence work, the political work and the activism work to make sure that that occurs in this state. That’s our job. That’s what I’m heading up. But I think it’s going to be very informative in the next couple of minutes listening to somebody who has, is walking in Rifqa’s shoes.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Thank you very much, Tom. Noni Darwish is probably well-known to you all. She is, among others, the author of a couple of best-selling works. Most recently, Cruel and Usual Punishment about the implications of Islamic law. She is, as I said earlier, herself an apostate under sharia. Someone who has left the faith. Having grown up in it, I think, through no choice of her own in Gaza. Her father was an Egyptian military officer who headed up the Fedayeen there and was assassinated for his anti-Israeli activities by Israeli forces and she has come to believe that the kind of behavior he engaged in, indeed, that those who adhere to sharia more generally engage in is abhorrent and as a result, she too is now subject to death penalties inflicted by those who do adhere to sharia. So she’s a marvelous authority and a most courageous exemplar of people who want to live in America, in a tolerant, peaceable, law-abiding way are all about. Even if they can’t do it according to sharia. So, Noni Darwish, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

NONI DARWISH: I really cannot imagine how frightened this girl is because we adults who left Islam in America, we are scared. We’re living in constant fear. Because according to Islamic law, we must be killed. And that’s not just radical Islam. That’s all schools of Islamic law. Whether you’re Sunni or Shia or all the branches of schools. A person who leaves Islam must be killed. Period. No doubt about it.

The problem is we, many Muslims who leave the Middle East for the West, thinking they are being protected, we discover, when we’re in America, we are not protected, because radical Islam follows us here. They install all these radical Muslim mosques, paid for by Saudi Arabia, threatening us and having just a subculture of tyranny in America. Preventing us from assimilating. Trying to live as American citizens. Let alone becoming, choosing to become atheists, or Christians, and the ingenious part about Islamic law is it did not leave the persecution of apostates to the government or to the police. Under Islamic law, any Muslim who kills an apostate will not be punished. Just like any Muslim who kills and adulterer will not be punished.

So sharia, ingenious sharia, what they did is they realized that police can be bribed, governments can change, but they left that in the hands of Muslims. Muslims have the right to take the law into their own hands. And that is why Muslim countries are a mess. Because the law is in street vigilante justice happens there. They can stone a girl right in the middle of the public square and nobody gets–goes to jail.

So this is coming to America. And radical Islam is following us here and we need protection. And this is–the problem also is that you can–there is something in Islam called the apostate card. They play the apostate card. So even if you did not declare you’re no longer a Muslim, if you act like you are not being a good Muslim, those radical groups and mosques will call you an apostate and will threatened your life. So that girl did not only act not like a Muslim, but she declared she doesn’t want to become a Muslim like I did. And I cannot imagine the pressure on a seventeen-year old because the pressure on me–and I turn sixty-one–I can’t, I personally can’t take the pressure. It’s horrendous. And I don’t have mother and father, I’m not under the, you know, under a household where I’m a minor. So this girl, it’s impossible for her to go back.

Of course now, the story is–has become a national, at the national level. The eyes are on that family. The eyes are on that mosque. My prediction: if she is sent back to her family, they will send her in a month or so, back to her country. And over there, they claim they are insane. And what happens is they go to a mental institution to pressure them psychologically to leave and become Muslims again. And if they don’t, they kill them. And that’s what’s going to happen to that girl. We’re going to hand her to death if we hand her back to that mosque and to her family. And I’m not saying that her family is necessarily bad people. Her father might not be a murderer or a mass murderer, no. But the pressure on families of apostates is so great.

When I left Islam, my mother, who’s eighty-eight now, I called her a few years ago and I told her yes, she asked me, did you leave Islam? And I said yes. I had hid it from her. Cause I didn’t want to upset her. And when I said yes, she said, I am shamed by everybody on the street. Everybody– the news media, the neighbors. They call it-"my face is black from shame." And I am under such pressure. Even though my mom is not a radical Muslim. And she’s the most gentile woman you’ll ever meet. But she hung up with me and said, "I will never ever talk to you again."

And I don’t know if some male member of the family can contract on my life here. I have no idea. Nobody talks to me anymore. I have a security system in the house here. And for a while, I hired somebody to watch my house, but I can’t afford it, of course. And whenever I go to the street, I ask the security to meet me at the parking lot and walk me back to the parking lot. It’s living in terror. And I can’t imagine this seventeen-year old girl– her life is really in danger.

It really strikes me how Americans who protect the weak and they are champions of freedom and liberty–want more proof. It’s astounding to me that until today they don’t know that Islam does not allow by penalty of death people to leave Islam. It’s almost like the Mafia, by the way. And this is coming here. And it’s very much linked to the concept of jihad, by the way. Because neither is a nation allowed to–the sovereignty of any nation that is non-Muslim is not respected by Islam. A Muslim, a nation, a Muslim individual has no right to leave Islam and the same thing for a nation. And that’s why we were struck by 9-11. There is jihad against any non-Muslim country and that is very linked to the concept of apostasy. It’s an apostate state.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Let me interrupt you there, because I do want to make sure we have time for give and take with the bloggers on the call. I just–Noni was on a radio show that I do called Secure Freedom Radio last week and she made the point in connection with this issue of the Mafia that there is a distinction, though. The Mafia doesn’t require you to join.

NONI DARWISH: Exactly.

FRANK GAFFNEY: It’s a voluntary procedure. At least at the beginning. They don’t let you leave. Islam, if you involuntarily are born into it as Noni was, as Rifqa was, you have no choice about leaving or getting in. So let’s open it up at this point and thank you again for joining us, especially on short notice, please identify yourself and who you’d like to have address any questions or comments you might have.

PIPELINE NEWS: Tom, you mentioned Thursday being a day of court proceedings. What is the status, the legal status of the case and what do you project to be taking place over the next period of time that would be significant?

TOM TRENTO: On August 21st, the hearing at 3:30, in the juvenile court in Orlando, we all thought it may be an issue on the parental rights, all that. It actually, the judge, Judge Daniel Dawson, is very focussed, very well-defined, the issue, two weeks ago, was jurisdiction. And when you have a minor who has taken up residence in Florida, she becomes an aide of the state, basically a ward of the state. And until somebody says she’s mine, then Florida has her. And that was his argument two weeks ago. He said, no other state anywhere has petitioned for this girl so what am I going to do with her? She’s mine. And the parents for the Barys were saying, well we want her back. And he said, whoa.

Before you get in a battle with whether or not you can have your daughter in our state, cause your daughter doesn’t want to go back with you, you live in Ohio, we got to sort out this jurisdiction. And there was a big going around in circles. But the bottom line was he established the fact that she’s in Florida. She will be respected and dealt with under Florida law.

This hearing, this week, could possibly, we don’t know, we haven’t seen any papers filed yet at the court–if the parents petition the state of Ohio to claim jurisdiction then there’s going to be an initial proceeding between the state of Florida and the state of Ohio determining where this girl resides and particularly with her affidavit which is also connected on our website–Floridasecuritycouncil.org–go to the Rifqa-Bary section, all the way down the bottom of the Noor report, you’ll see PDFs for both. By her own admission, she’s been threatened by death by her father, so Judge Dawson is hesitant to let her go, as any of us would be. We don’t know Thursday if there’s going to be the continuation of the jurisdiction argument or if there’s going to be some other element–the relationship of the daughter to the father. Now there’s a few more pieces, and I think it makes a lot of sense if I put these together. From what I understand, the two attorneys that were representing the Barys have been fired or they’re gone. In my opinion, they did a horrendous job. I sat in the courtroom. In representing their clients. They were asking the judge to call the state of Ohio to initiate an action on the part of their clients. And the judge was dumbfounded by that request.

In any event, I understand they’re gone and there’s two new attorneys there. So we don’t know which direction it’s going to go at this point. There will be several motions over possible mediation. Rifqa-Bary wanted to speak last, two weeks ago. And as soon as the proceedings started, John Stemberger stood up and said, my client would like to make a statement. The other side jumped up and said, no way. And there was a twenty-minute sidebar. And the judge said, look–after the twenty minutes–if clients want to speak, minors or not, as long as it’s approved by their attorney, I’ll let them.

She spoke, and she started out and you’ve probably seen it on TV, she said I love my parents, I love my family. I’m afraid of them. I’m not going back there. So there may be some motions over mediation, cause the judge said we’re going into mediation and we’re going to try that. And then we’re going to get into the lawsuit to see if she’s staying here or not. So we don’t know. It’s going to be a very interesting and exciting day on Thursday. Exciting in the sense that these are difficult issues–not difficult in my mind of where she should stay–but difficult for John Stemberger and his team to argue on her behalf.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Let me just say that part of the reason for putting this conference call together hastily, as it happens, is both to equip you guys with this information that we’ve been relaying, but also, quite frankly, hopefully encouraging you to help elevate public awareness about this case and the fact that it is now taking these twists and turns so that the kind of outcry that I think was absolutely indispensable to a seemingly pretty salutary outcome two weeks ago will be repeated again as Governor Christ and the secretary of the department of children and families in Florida, Secretary Sheldon, weighed in, among others, to, you know, make clear that they were concerned about this young girl’s physical well-being. And that they weren’t going to let it be jeopardized.

ACT FOR AMERICA: I have a question for Tom regarding political machinery in Florida and in what we can be doing. What leverage points does he see are particularly vulnerable for grass roots contact to elected officials and various departments involved.

TOM TRENTO: Act for America has been covering this in their national and local communication pieces. Again, this issue has many parts. It has an investigative part. It has a terrorism part. It has a protection of a child part. It’s a phenomenal Greek tragedy in many real respects, but there’s a political part. And the key right now based upon the totality of the evidence before everybody that she should stay here once it’s consumed and digested and distilled and understood.

The focus is on the Department of Children and Families and the executive office, Governor Charlie Christ. It works very simply. There are three advocates for Rifqa Bary sitting, surrounding her, at a hundred and eighty degrees on the compass with her in the middle. On her right is the GAL, Guardian Ad Litum. That’s a court-appointed official to be the consultant to the judge to objectively analyze everything and give an unbiased opinion to the judge. Then sitting directly to Rifqa’s left is John Stemberger, her personal attorney, who is advocating the best interests of his client. And to his left are a team of attorneys for the Department of Children and Families advocating what is best for a child living in Florida.

Two weeks ago, all three of those advocates were in unison, saying she stays here. So they gave this clear statement to the judge. We know there’s an FDLE, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, investigation. And we have heard through our sources that that investigation may not be–and certainly is not as thorough as the one that John Stemberger, Rifqa’s personal attorney, released yesterday. And because of that, part of this tripartite team that is advocating for Rifqa may be fracturing a bit. If that’s the case, then the political component is phone calls and activism to George Sheldon, the director, telling him do not abandon this girl at this point. And the will of the people voiced that way goes a long way in these departments. In a harmonious fashion, Charlie Christ, who has the capability as the executive officer, to direct DCF to do certain things before the court, needs to, again, find his tongue. He was very late coming into this. Two thirty. An hour before the hearing started, we want him tomorrow taking a stand saying, hey folks, I’ve looked at that Noor Center report and I don’t want to go to Ohio, let alone that girl. That’s what we need.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Let me just add my word of thanks to ACT for America, because I think there’s no question that the kind of activism on the ground in Florida that you and the Florida Security Council have brought to bear on this has made a real difference and we hope you’ll redouble the effort. And as Tom said, I think it’s especially important that political figures who are now serving in loco parentis, if they say in Florida, for Rifqa, genuinely know that we’re holding them accountable for her safety and assuring that she is not going to wind up being the next victim of an honor killing according to sharia in Ohio or elsewhere. Thank you very much for joining us, especially on short notice and please help pass the word about the importance of this case, both in its particulars and for the nation as a whole.

[Image by Florida Security Council]