This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3265

Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition Demands Apology from Almontaser for false accusations

November 28, 2007

New York Post front page of August 11, 2007, with a picture of Dhabah Almontaser and the headline "Sheik Up."..

MIM: For more on KGIA and Almontaser see: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/731#latest

Group Demands Apology from Almontaser

BY Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 28, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/67083

An advocacy group is demanding an apology from the former principal of a Brooklyn school with an Arabic-language theme. The Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition, which has lobbied for the Bloomberg administration to shut down the Khalil Gibran International Academy and requested the firing of its founding principal, Dhabah Almontaser, is asking Ms. Almontaser to apologize for accusing the group of "stalking" her and making "vicious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments."

Writing to her lawyer, Alan Levine, in a letter sent Monday, an attorney for Stop the Madrassa, David Yerushalmi, demanded Ms. Almontaser publicly rescind her comments and issue an apology to the group.

Mr. Yerushalmi also picked out Ms. Almontaser's public attack on a supporter of the group, the historian Daniel Pipes, whose columns run in this newspaper. The letter calls Ms. Almontaser's contention that Mr. Pipes "has made his career fostering hatred of Arabs and Muslims" unfounded.

Mr. Levine could not be reached for comment yesterday.

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STOP THE MADRASSA ATTORNEYS DEMAND ALMONTASER IMMEDIATELY RETRACT BLATANT LIES AND FALSE AND DEFAMATORY PUBLIC STATEMENTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 27 2007, New York — Citizens for American Values in Public Education and Stop the Madrassa announced today that Stop the Madrassa attorneys have formally demanded retraction of spurious public statements made by Dhabbah "Debbie" Almontaser falsely claiming that Stop the Madrassa members have engaged in "stalking" of the former KGIA principal-designate.

The false and defamatory statements by Ms. Almontaser have been published by several news outlets, including the New York Times (see, http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/principal-of-citys-arabic-school-says-she-was-forced-out/). STM's attorneys asserted today that Almontaser's accusation is an "unadulterated lie," accusing STM members of a criminal offense in the state of New York (see, e.g., New York Penal Code § 120.50). The STM attorneys go on to point out that such a false public accusation is defamation per se, and that "this blatant lie has now been repeated" by Ms. Almontaser's attorney in the federal lawsuit recently filed on behalf of Ms. Almontaser.

In recent months, Citizens for American Values in Public Education, has stepped up its calls for closure of KGIA, as well as expanding its fight nationwide to halt the imposition of radical Islamist agendas in curricula, Arab language programs, history classes, textbooks, teacher training, and charter schools.

Stop the Madrassa and Citizens for American Values in Public Education are calling on all Americans to stand in solidarity with those using their First Amendment rights to speak out responsibly about their concerns regarding the growth of stealth radical Islamism quickly moving throughout our country and particularly in our American schools.

http://stopthemadrassa.wordpress.com/

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3265