This is Mohammad Lutfi, who disrupted the press conference that Pamela Geller, Jamal Jivanjee, Tom Trento and I held last Thursday outside the courthouse where another hearing on the Rifqa Bary case took place. Lutfi also lied about Islamic apostasy law, and is caught lying on the video above about his meeting with CAIR's lawyers.
Pamela also has found him comparing Osama bin Laden favorably to George W. Bush in 2004:
On the other hand, you have Osama bin Laden, a Muslim Arab, saying that the United States is evil, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and interested in controlling Arab land and oil and in maintaining brutal Arab dictators in power. Bin Laden is recruiting Muslims and Arabs to stand up and fight against their enemies -- that's Israel and America. As an Arab or Muslim listening to both Bush and bin Laden, whom should you believe and whom should you trust?...
The support for Hamas and Hizballah is really no surprise, since CAIR officials have consistently declined to condemn either one as a terrorist group. Nonetheless, CAIR's Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper seemed anxious to distance himself from Lutfi. He emailed me last Friday, asking, "And you [sic] evidence that Muhammad Lutfi represents CAIR is...??" Of course, I hadn't said that Lutfi did represent CAIR, but in any case from the looks of this video Lutfi himself seems quite proud of his association with the un-indicted co-conspirators.
In the course of our exchange Hooper kindly forwarded me CAIR's statement on apostasy, which appears to affirm the freedom of conscience. But when I asked him to forward me CAIR's specific statement in support of Rifqa Bary's free conscience, he fell silent.
Robert notes: "In the course of our exchange Hooper kindly forwarded me CAIR's statement on apostasy, which appears to affirm the freedom of conscience."
Here is a recent posting of CAIR's public statement on apostasy, which looks to me the same as the one they were circulating a few years ago:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=118038079441
They provide partial quotes to some religiously tolerant-looking verses, including part of the famous 2:256. They do not acknowledge the various warnings, threats, and fire-and-brimstone punishments found in the textual context from which these partial quotes have been clipped. They make no attempt to explain, much less present, other verses which present a much harsher view of apostasy, including earthly punishments.
They use the classic apologetic line of conflating apostasy with treason, and fail to define treason or apostasy. They also fail to distinguish between public apostasy and private apostasy.
While elsewhere they claim that "freedom of expression" is one of their core principles, they do not provide any description of what they believe are appropriate criticisms of Islam. Given that in practice they consider Islam critics to be "Islamophobes" etc., and have never reported a single example of a non-Muslim's appropriate criticism of Islam, one has to wonder about their real views of public apostates. Public apostates of Islam are, at minimum, in effect claiming to the public that Islam is false. This proposition that Islam is false is, in CAIR's practice, treated as "hate" and "Islamophobia."
They do not specify how they would treat publicly-expressed criticisms and concerns about Islam if they had more power. They supported the suppression of the publication of the Muhammad cartoons. The Canadian branch of CAIR (and other mainstream Islamic organizations) supported the various Canadian Human Rights Tribunals' quasi-judicial prosecutions of Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine over Steyn's speculations about Muslim demographics in Europe. CAIR's Canadian branch supported the attempt to introduce sharia into family law into Ontario and Quebec. In contrast, an organization known as the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has publicly stated opposition to sharia, blasphemy laws, penalties for apostasy, and jihad. Why does CAIR seem to have such great difficulty making clear condemnations of these same items? These facts give us some idea of CAIR's real position on publicly-expressed apostasy.
CAIR publishes Guides for Journalists. I've read one of these pamphlets in a library, and in it they claim that "Islam means peace" (which is false) and they advise the media to only consult with Muslim, not non-Muslim, experts on Islam.
"CAIR publishes Guides for Journalists. I've read one of these pamphlets in a library, and in it they claim that "Islam means peace" (which is false) and they advise the media to only consult with Muslim, not non-Muslim, experts on Islam."
judging by the way most of the media report on Muslim activities there are a lot of media reporters relying solely on Muslim experts...The few really good reporters investigate both sides of the story..this certainly helps to identify just who is a fraud and a liar...Most of the time it will be the Muslims being reported on....and when Muslims are questioned with intelligent questions they start denying or claiming victimhoom by blaming the other guy or as we well know...fall silent...
Muslims are great supporters of the restriction and abolishment of free speech...they don't have to continously dodge questions if you are not permitted to ask them..
I wonder if our friends at the Orlando Sentinel will mention Mr. Lutfi's man crush on bin Laden? They've already whitewashed Omar Ahmad's infamous Islamic supremacy statement (which they tried to attribute to Robert Spencer), so I guess we can expect them to continue to run interference for the stealth jihad lobby (CAIR and company). The Muslims are acting in their usual duplicitous manner here, so that comes as no surprise. What is the most disgusting aspect of this story is the way in which the Florida media has gone out of its way to serve as a propaganda outlet for CAIR and its willingness to demonise Rifqa Bary and her supporters.