Over at his excellent site United States Action, Jeffrey Imm, a great friend of Jihad Watch, reports on this meeting regarding the Islamic Saudi Academy:
Imagine facing the overwhelming odds of fighting for equality in Islamic supremacist Saudi Arabia or in the 1960s-era white supremacist Mississippi.These were the same odds faced by a handful of activists in challenging the estimated 600 supporters of the Islamic Saudi Academy at Northern Virginia's Fairfax County Planning Commission on the night of March 18, 2009. Many hundreds of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) supporters wore printed name tag badges reading "I Support ISA," including ISA's logo containing the emblem of Saudi Arabian government with its two crossed swords.
This is the same Saudi government that a few weeks ago the U.S. State Department condemned for its "significant human rights problems" in denying basic freedoms and human rights to men, women, and non-Muslims, and the same Saudi government whose courts recently sentenced a 75 year old woman to 40 lashes for "mingling" with men, and whose courts recently sentenced a pregnant gang-rape victim to 100 lashes for "adultery."
The meeting of the Fairfax County Government Planning Commission was to consider a special exemption to a zoning regulation to allow for the building of an expansion to the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax, Virginia. The Fairfax County government has been leasing space for the existing Saudi Academy facilities for years now. As a suburb of Washington DC, Fairfax, Virginia is slightly more than 20 miles away from our nation's capital. The Islamic Saudi Academy has been frequently criticized for its reported use of textbooks promoting hate and violence, its former students associated with jihadplots, reports of negligence on reporting female child sex abuse, and ISA's former valedictorian convicted of joining Al-Qaeda and plotting to assassinate the president.
At the government public meeting, the Fairfax County government board auditorium was packed by Islamic Saudi Academy supporters beyond capacity with dozens standing in the aisles and corridors, as it sought to show its clout to Northern Virginia's Fairfax government. It was an event that most Fairfax residents were unaware of, but the Saudi Arabian-backed institution's supporters were well organized to demonstrate their power in Virginia. Andrea Lafferty, one of the few speakers to challenge the Islamic Saudi Academy was nearly ushered out with the overflow crowd of Islamic Saudi Academy supporters, until she fought to have a seat in the audience.
As Islamic Saudi Academy's attorney Lynn Strobel presented their case to the Fairfax County Planning Commission, she emphasized the public support of her clients seeking the expansion of this Islamic supremacist, Wahhabist-based institution. In a dramatic move to demonstrate their power, Lynn Strobel turned to audience and asked the supporters of the Islamic Saudi Academy to rise. In the auditorium packed with individuals wearing printed badges "I Support ISA," virtually EVERY person stood up.
While the Islamic Saudi Academy's attorney and their speakers were treated courteously and with respect, those in opposition to the Islamic Saudi Academy were treated very differently.
The bullying mob of Islamic Saudi Academy supporters was frequently allowed to disrupt the tiny number willing to speak against the Islamic Saudi Academy's planned expansion in Fairfax County. Several speakers challenging this expansion were loudly booed and laughed at -- until the Fairfax commission chairman Peter Murphy (as this was being captured on video) would eventually call for order.
While most of the activists challenging the Islamic Saudi Academy addressed typical zoning issues like traffic and local conservation issues, they also addressed the challenge to human rights in extending land use for an institution with a documented history of textbooks promoting hatred and intolerance, and whose leaders and students have been linked to covering up female child sex abuse and terrorism plots. One commissioner criticized such activists for addressing such human rights and human security issues as "people there who obviously had an agenda."
There is much more. Be sure to read it all.