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Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Pamela Geller, founder, editor and publisher of the popular and award-winning weblog AtlasShrugs.com. She has won acclaim for her interviews with internationally renowned figures, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye’or, Natan Sharansky, and many others, and has broken numerous important stories — notably the questionable sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign.
Her op-eds have been published in The Washington Times, The American Thinker, Israel National News, Frontpage Magazine, World Net Daily, and New Media Journal, among other publications. She is the co-author (with Robert Spencer) of the soon to be released, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America (forward by Ambassador John Bolton).
FP: Pamela Geller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
I would like to talk to you today about Facebook’s Fatwa’s on Rifqa.
What exactly is going on?
Geller: Thank you Jamie.
Facebook is full of death threats and other vicious material about Rifqa Bary, the teenage convert from Islam to Christianity who is in a fight for her life in juvenile court on Franklin County, Ohio. She left Islam and converted to Christianity, and she has been persecuted for it ever since.
Rifqa Bary
Rifqa’s life is now on the line. Back in September I reported at my website AtlasShrugs.com on the first Rifqa Bary Facebook Fatwa: a Facebook group that said openly, “we need to kill her,” and was full of Muslim members. Now add this to the list of fatwas and death threats against Rifqa Bary: a Facebook group, again with numerous Muslim members, proclaiming, “Don’t save Rifqa Bary, let them kill her.” Although I have called attention to that group, it is still on Facebook. It has 64 members, all of them apparently Muslims. Not a Moishe in the mix.
Imagine, these are just the ones we catch. Only G-d knows how many hit squads are out for this young woman.
Another Facebook group screams, “F*** RIFQA BARY !!! SHAME FOR ISLAM !!!!” It has 57 members – once again, all Muslims. This one openly admits what CAIR and other front groups in America lie about: “In Islam, yes, apostasy is the death penalty.”
And yet another Rifqa-hating Facebook group asks if she is the Dajjal, an evil figure from Islamic eschatology. Robert Spencer says: “The Dajjal will at the end of days lead people astray. Muhammad said: ‘The Dajjal is one-eyed and will bring with him what will resemble Hell and Paradise, and what he will call Paradise will be actually Hell; so I warn you (against him) as Noah warned his nation against him.’” The Facebook group says: “Scriptures reveal Dajjal will have one eye. Rifqa Bary has one eye. You be the judge.” It also quotes a dhimmi Christian, Rev. Tim Ahrens, praising the extremist Noor mosque that Rifqa’s parents attend and saying, “I have only ever found graciousness and kindness in my dealings with Muslims.”
They are screaming it on social networks, but in the case of Rifqa Bary, justice is not blind, it is deaf and dumb. Is Judge Elizabeth Gill and Rifqa’s crack legal defense team going to continue to ignore the death penalty for apostasy under Sharia law for those who leave Islam? Are the CAIR militants going to act like thugs, and intimidate and pervert the American justice system to enforce Islamic law?
FP: What are other developments since the Rifqa Bary case returned to Ohio?
Geller: There have been many, especially in recent weeks. Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas front CAIR has found out where Rifqa is living. Omar Tarazi knows the address of Rifqa Bary’s foster home. How? What Islamist enemy leaked her location to CAIR? She must be moved at once. Who put Rifqa’s life at risk? I would demand a change of venue. The courtroom has been infiltrated, her best interests subverted.
Rifqa’s foster parents have her on lockdown. Rifqa’s limited phone and computer were completely cut off after the hearing of the 22nd. Complete crackdown. All communication to Rifqa was cut off. It was decided that a counselor would determine if she could have contact with friends. The counselor said she could, but nothing has happened. She is literally being treated like a prisoner.
FP: Sounds like Sharia Law on America soil.
Geller: That is what is happening Jamie. This is the punishment for female apostasy. House arrest until the apostate recants. This isolation is a form of psychological torture. I thought Obama said no torture for jihadists. So why is a girl in America, guilty only of freedom of religion, allowed to be psychologically tortured? This is mental abuse, and the fact that the parents are behind it with a terror organization as their hatchet man speaks volumes as to what would happen to Rifqa if they ever dared to send her home.
Apparently Rifqa met with and was begging the counselor assigned to her for some contact, any contact, with the people she loves. She told the counselor she was completely isolated. Alone and sad. The counselor agreed and said OK. But nothing has been done. Rifqa’s John Stemberger-appointed lawyers have agreed to this house arrest. She is surrounded on all sides.
Her legal team, still led by her former Florida attorney John Stemberger, is fiercely raising money — for what? I thought his work was pro bono. And he bungled the case so badly in Florida that I cannot imagine why he is still driving the “strategy”.
Pamela Geller (L) with Ann Coulter
FP: Why has Rifqa’s legal team agreed to or imposed this crackdown in concert with the foster family?
Geller: I don’t know. Perhaps because those who loved Rifqa would advise her to get new legal help that specialized in apostasy cases. But no one can get to her. A new lawyer could ask for a continuance to prepare for the brutal trial against the Islamic machine. She needs a continuance.
She has no one now. No one. It has never been this bad for her. And her legal team has not been preparing for trial. They seem to think they can still make a deal with CAIR (Muslim Brotherhood). The Barys will never make a deal. This is jihad. A deal is never going to happen. Rifqa’s lawyers have barely begun taking depositions for Rifqa. They haven’t interviewed any of Rifqa’s witnesses in the trial to prove dependency. And Rifqa’s parents are fighting dependency with every dishonest crooked tool in the Islamist toolbox (taqiya, lies, deception). But the Stemberger-led legal team is still in the earliest stages of preparations.
FP: What is it exactly that Rifqa’s parents are up to?
Geller: Rifqa’s parents are fighting dependency by saying there was no conflict in the home. They are saying there is no conflict for apostasy in Islam. Every teaching from the Quran (Allah’s word) says it is the most egregious crime, punishable by death. The devout Barys said “she could practice her Christianity in the home”. Nothing could be farther removed from objective reality. She lived in fear and in secret for years. The beatings, the death threats can all be substantiated by her friends. The nature of the conflict is Islam, yet Rifqa’s lawyers will not present any religious evidence. Ex-Muslims such as Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, and the world’s leading scholar on Islam, Ibn Warraq, would testify. None are being called.
The parents and their CAIR-appointed attorney Omar Tarazi are determining who can speak to Rifqa. They are the only ones who can determine who is on the non-existent visitors list. And now, still, there is no visitors list. The two closest friends of Rifqa are no longer able to contact her.
In the courtroom on December 22nd, the magistrate told the attorneys she doesn’t want any surprises before they go into any of the hearings, so they meet in chambers first. She wants to know everything that is going to be filed. Every motion, any move…and no Islam. You can not introduce Islam.
And yet Islam has been introduced already. Just look at the Facebook threats.
I have said from the very first that Rifqa Bary is the highest value target in America. Apostasy is the most egregious crime against Islam. Her crime is not just against the family. It is against Islam.
I know Ohio law enforcement and Florida law enforcement found no threat to Rifqa, but perhaps they can put down the kool aid for five minutes and do their jobs.
With sites on Facebook threatening Rifqa with death, everyone should stop the PC Religion-Of-Peace nonsense and get serious. Is law enforcement going to stop playing games and protect this young girl or what? Salman Rushdie did far less.
FP: What can the average citizen do to help Rifqa? And who can we contact on Facebook to ask why it allows jihad and death threats on its site?
Geller: Jamie, the average citizen can write to Ohio authorities, including the governor, to protest how they are allowing Rifqa to be railroaded.
Franklin County children services can be reached here.
Eric Fenner’s fax number is 614-275-2755 and his e-mail address is edfenner@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us
The Ohio governor’s office can be reached here.
Also, Governor Strickland is up for re-election. Here is John Kasich’s contact information.
Be vigilant. And pray for her.
As for Facebook, they seem deliberately to make it difficult to contact them. There are contact forms within Facebook itself for members, but it is not easy to know which is the right one that will get to the right person.
Readers can and should try abuse@facebook.com, but there is no assurance that anyone with any authority in Facebook will see the message.
FP: Pamela Geller, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
- Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
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