The canary in the mineshaft. “Stay of Execution,” by Frank Gaffney, Jr. at the Center for Security Policy, August 24:
The image of a man convicted of killing 270 Americans and other innocent civilians receiving a hero’s welcome last week at an airport in Libya was at once appalling and infuriating. Unless something permanent is done in the near future, however, the culture that promotes such behavior may soon be exulting over the “honor killing” of a young woman in America.
The young woman in question is Rifqa Bary, a seventeen-year-old from a family of Sri Lankan expatriates who are part of a Muslim community near Columbus, Ohio that is dominated by the Noor Islamic Cultural Center. This mosque is renowned for its adherence to the brutally intolerant and repressive theo-political-religious program authoritative Islam calls Shariah. In fact, counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole has described the Noor Center as “the premier source of Islamic extremism” in Central Ohio.
According to Shariah, it is impermissible to leave the faith: Those who convert have engaged in “apostasy,” a capital offense. As Ms. Bary says she embraced Christianity four years ago, she is– in the words of Tom Trento, a formidable anti-Shariah activist who runs the Florida Security Council– “Dead Girl Walking.”
Pamela Geller’s terrific web site, AtlasShrugs, reports that Rifqa Bary was brutalized by family members even before they discovered that she had converted. But when the family learned, apparently from others associated with the Noor mosque, that the girl was an apostate, she says her father erupted: “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You’re not my daughter. I will kill you.” […]
What is clear at this point, though, is that Rifqa Bary has received but a stay– perhaps literally– of execution. It is a safe bet that the court will be subjected in the coming days to a counter-campaign by her parents’ friends and supporters. Already, according to blogger Dr. Rusty Shakelford, a source who infiltrated a strategy session convened by the Muslim Brotherhood associated Council on American Islamic Relations reported that CAIR “handed out copies of [a recent] Orlando Sentinel article [that was critical of Ms. Bary] and want supporters to push the meme that Christians have brainwashed and abducted this gullible teenage girl. They have also instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality. [This CAIR strategy takes the focus off the near-universal Islamic legal precepts and Quranic injunctions that demand death for apostates and impugns the character of the innocent girl at the center of this controversy who appears to be in genuine fear for her life if she is returned to her parents.]”
Let us be clear: Rifqa Bary is a proverbial “canary in the mineshaft,” a warning to all of us that toxic Shariah is leeching into America. Every effort must be made to ensure that her freedoms– and, inevitably, ours– are permanently protected against this deadly assault.
Yes.