In "Media Distorts Facts of Threatened Muslim Girl Story" at Newsmax (August 24), Pamela Geller shows how the mainstream media has tried to stack the deck against Rifqa Bary from the beginning:
The Aug. 21 ruling that allowed Rifqa Bary, the teenager who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her Muslim family in fear for her life, to stay in Florida rather than return to her parents, was unexpected. The media shills and Islamic machinery in the United States never expected that Rifqa and the people would prevail upon the powers that be in Florida. So now they are in overdrive.One egregious example is an almost incomprehensible, misogynist column in the Orlando Sentinel. It is so inaccurate, so misinformed, and so dangerous, that if Rifqa Bary is harmed, “columnist” Mike Thomas could rightly be charged with incitement to violent honor killing. Thomas got nothing right. Not one detail. Further, at no point did he consider Rifqa’s testimony. At no point did he consider the consequences of Rifqa’s testimony. At no point did he consider the risk to Rifqa’s life. [...]
Thomas observes that Rifqa was a cheerleader and says: “Somehow I can’t imagine a Muslim extremist allowing his daughter to wear short skirts and shake pompoms in front of a crowd of infidels.”
Thomas knows nothing of honor killings in the West. Victims are generally beautiful, Westernized, and dressed in a manner that perhaps Thomas would term “provocative.” Muslim girls who live in the West lead two lives. Amina and Sarah Said, allegedly murdered by their father in Texas on New Year’s Day 2008 for having non-Muslim boyfriends, were honor students, star athletes, soccer players, tennis players, etc. Rifqa was the same way in Ohio before she fled. These girls led double lives. The murder always happens when the family sees they have lost control of the child. In the case of Amina and Sarah, the girls ran away. The mother lured them back, and they were both dead less than 24 hours later. Canadian honor killing victim Aqsa Parvez also left her home and was staying with friends when she too was lured back, only to be murdered, allegedly by her father, for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf.
The fathers cleanse the family of the dishonor of their daughter’s un-Islamic behavior. But Thomas also adds: “I could go through the Old Testament and cherry-pick any number of quotes demanding death for nonbelievers, nonvirgin brides and blasphemers. No Christian I know endorses that, yet it seems every Muslim abides by the darker writings in the faith.” But what difference does that make? Christian and Jews are not killing their daughters and wives to restore their honor. Muslims are.
Most outrageously of all, Thomas decries an “anti-Muslim” bias in the media coverage of Rifqa’s case. In fact, there was an anti-Christian bias. The mainstream media vilified the good Christians who provided sanctuary to Rifqa, who sought only to escape her father’s threat to kill her. The media reported only the parents’ Islamist narrative — giving Rifqa’s story no air time or ink. They repeated the lies over and over again. Folks had to go to YouTube to hear Rifqa in her own words. Why didn’t one media outlet have on an expert or scholar on apostasy in Islam? Why wasn’t Ibn Warraq or Wafa Sultan called? Robert Spencer was nowhere to be seen. Fox called on political pundits and others to explain Rifqa’s case, and they got it wrong. The only responsible expert who weighed in was Frank Gaffney. [...]
Rifqa Bary is the highest value target in America. She should be under 24-hour guard. And she should be given a fair shake in the media.
Stunning to see how Islam continues to get a pass from useful idiots like Mike Thomas. Meanwhile, Christianity, which doesn't produce, oh let's see, suicide bombers, hostage takers, animals who saw off heads, believers who hijack jets and fly them into buildings, fathers who kill their daughters in the name of Christ, is regularly lampooned.
Critical thinking is at a premium these days. Mike Thomas is solid evidence of this. Finally, I believe the Thomases of the world are not only possessed of a profound ignorance of the ways things really are, they are also, way down inside, loathers of their own civilization, one which is infinitely superior to the one which the Islamic world has wrought. Yet again, we can see that those who value Western Civilization are faced with both the enemy without and the enemy within.
Not only should Muslim females in danger of being killed be given round the clock protection, but the non-Muslim world should boycott all Muslim nations until they stop such barbaric practices. Perhaps if their economies are destroyed, they will realize that the civilized world will no longer tolerate the garbage that they claim is religious practice.
Anytime FoxNews thinks of interviewing Mike Huckabee, or any of the other pretenders who think they know something of Islam, on anything to do with Islam, including honor killings, they should take a deep breath and call on Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Frank Gaffney, Wafa Sultan, Brigitte Gabriel, Andrew Bostom, Bat Y'eor, Geert Wilders, Raymond Ibrahim, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali (apologies to anyone on the front lines I forgot). Any one of these individuals could, and would, give a much more coherent explanation for what is happening and why.
Mike Huckabee proved in his interview on Fox last Saturday morning that he will never be Presidential material. What a dope.
Anytime FoxNews thinks of interviewing Mike Huckabee, or any of the other pretenders who think they know something of Islam, on anything to do with Islam, including honor killings, they should take a deep breath and call on Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Frank Gaffney, Wafa Sultan, Brigitte Gabriel, Andrew Bostom, Bat Y'eor, Geert Wilders, Raymond Ibrahim, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali (apologies to anyone on the front lines I forgot). Any one of these individuals could, and would, give a much more coherent explanation for what is happening and why.
Mike Huckabee proved in his interview on Fox last Saturday morning that he will never be Presidential material. What a dope.
G McCal - another person that Fox might profitably consult is Canon Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, of the UK. He is currently putting the finishing touches to a forthcoming book about the apostasy law in Islam - which sounds like it will be a worthy modern successor to Samuel Zwemer's scholarly classic, 'The Law of Apostasy in Islam'.
Canon Sookhdeo, born in Suriname to Muslim parents of Pakistani extraction, apostasised from Islam in the 1960s while at university in the UK; he did a stint in London, with his English-background wife Rosemary, as an inner-urban missionary priest; and he has set up the 'Barnabas Fund' to support persecuted Christians (Barnabas' primary focus is the Islamic world, but they also try to help persecuted Christians in nasty non-Muslim dictatorships like N Korea and Myanmar and Zimbabwe).
*Right now* the Barnabas Fund is circulating a petition re. the apostasy law in Islam. (You can find the text of this at their website - US citizens who visit the website should be able to download and print off copies of the petition).
The Barnabas Fund people intend to present petitions to governments across the non-Muslim world, urging said governments to weigh in on behalf of the human rights of apostates [within their own jurisdictions and also in the Islamic world], and to challenge Islamised states to publicly renounce the apostasy law (which is impossible, of course).
No Islamised entity will break with sharia to that extent; but at least the presentation of this petition to non-Muslim governments may help to make them aware of this major human rights abuse that exists within Islam.
Please tell me that someone is going to contact Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel and put him straight? I'd do it myself, but we've got our own battle against the murderous scourge of Islam here in Australia and that's where I focus my energy.
We can contact Mike Thomas here
mthomas@orlandosentinel.com
We can contact Mike Thomas here
mthomas@orlandosentinel.com
We can contact Mike Thomas here
mthomas@orlandosentinel.com
We can contact Mike Thomas here
mthomas@orlandosentinel.com
Thank you, GiriGiriHanasu and welcome to the new comment tools of jihad wiatch!
FOX has not been kind to muslims on this issue. The Orlando Sentinel obviously recieved Saudi $. The media overall has not been kind to the muslim slant and do seem concerned over Rifqa.
Now would be a good time to use Oral Roberts law school, Regent University School of Law and Trinity Law School to perform miraculous legal tasks and prove to this Florida judge that islam is not a religion but merely a socio/military/autobiography in the same genre as Sun Tzu "Art of War", Machiavelli, "The Prince and The Discourses", Frederick the Great's, "The Art of Commanding an Army" or Patton's. "War as I Knew It" and any book recording the battles of Hannial or Alexander the Great.
CALL THEM AND MAKE THIS THEIR CAUSE!!!!
Everything should be done to protect R Bary from her family.If they can be deported then they should be.
Her You Tube video should be aired in every hospital emergency room so staff there can be made aware of this Islamic sanctioned domestic abuse, and the potential for honor murders.
Her video should also be played during police training, our first responders need to be educated about this.
One of the best ways to protect her is to continue to expose Islamic dogma and ideology to the light of day, and to openly criticize it.
But Thomas also adds: “I could go through the Old Testament and cherry-pick any number of quotes demanding death for nonbelievers, nonvirgin brides and blasphemers. No Christian I know endorses that, yet it seems every Muslim abides by the darker writings in the faith.” But what difference does that make? Christian and Jews are not killing their daughters and wives to restore their honor. Muslims are.
She could have added:
1. Most Christians do not follow the Old Testament, but the New, and there is very little picking of violent cherries there.
2. Even in the OT, the death demanded was not for "unbelievers", but for various tribes: in other words, limited in time and space, not killing of infidels forever and wherever you find them (as in Islam)
Does anyone but me miss Intense Debate?
TypePad is boring, as it does not allow for quick responses or spirited debate. Seems to me the number of postings has dropped off significantly since reverting back to the old system.
ImNoDhimmi,
Ya I miss ID, But they banished me permanantly as mobamad, for talking about the Catholics. I was free to insult Islam, but not even alowed to tell the truth about Catholics. WTF!?!
But, you are right, Typepad is boring. Makes for slow trash talking. I miss gay-bashing marko, and the rest of thoes assbaskets.
Stupid Typepad. :-(
Rifqa should just say that she's a lesbian oppressed by her father, or needed to travel interstate for an abortion, then the media would be on her side.
Media distorts the truth?? Uhm....forgive me, but that's not news!!... Most of us here on Jihad watch are all to aware of media distortions...that's why we come to sites like this to get our news!
CJK: Rifqa Bary may belong to a Christian group that takes a dim view of lying, so if she isn't a lesbian and is urged to say that she is, she and her supporters may have a little problem with that.
More seriously, if this girl is returned to her family and becomes the victim of an honor killing, Mike Thomas and a few legal officers should be arrested and tried as accessories to first degree murder--hopefully in a state where the death penalty stands.