This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4428
June 28, 2010
June 28, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNew.org - Four Christian missionaries in Dearborn were recently subjected to a Shari'a enforcement action, arrested by local police for the "crime" of distributing non-Islamic religious leaflets at a Muslim festival.
The Dearborn 4 are being represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan which specializes in the preservation of religious liberty.
Arrested for breach of peace were, Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla, and David Wood.
Mayel an Afghani immigrant and convert to Christianity, had her camera seized by police even though she was over 100 feet away from the event.
The Dearborn police department is run by Ron Haddad, its first Arab American chief.
Contacted for a comment, Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, stated:
"These Christian missionaries were exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus. It's apparent that these arrests were a retaliatory action over the embarrassing video of the strong arm tactics used last year by Festival Security Guards. This time, the first thing police officers did before making the arrests was to confiscate the video cameras in order to prevent a recording of what was actually happening."
Mr. Thompson added that, "the actions taken by the police constituted an abridgment of First Amendment Rights guaranteed by the Constitution, "Contrary to the comments made by Police Chief Ron Haddad, our Constitution does not allow police to ban the right of free speech just because there are some hecklers. Not all police officers approve of the way their department treated these Christians."
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This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4428