Author: R.E.A.L.

Christian Supremacism – NYC: “Westboro Baptist” Hate Group to Protest New York Area Synagogues

“Westboro Baptist” Hate Group to Protest New York Area Synagogues
— The Jewish Star reports:
— “Fringe Baptist group to bring hate to Great Neck”
— “Protests planned next week in Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan”

— “A fundamentalist church from Topeka, Kansas plans protests at Jewish locations in Great Neck, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan for three days beginning Thursday, September 24th. The Westboro Baptist Church, led by Rev. Fred Phelps and composed largely of his family members, has been in the news with its protests at funerals of AIDS victims and American soldiers killed in action… While the church has mainly protested what it perceives as homosexual targets and colleges around the country, since April 2009 it has also picketed Jewish sites, according to the Anti-Defamation League.”
— “The church is an ‘extreme group that spews hate wherever it goes,’ said Ron Meier, director of the New York region of ADL. ‘Their strategy is to attract attention and draw a response and by doing so get publicity for their church, and that’s why the ADL has advised all groups not to engage them. Because without a response they don’t gain attention and any further spreading of their view,’ he said.”
— “Westboro Baptist Church is considered to be a fringe organization; it is not associated with any major Christian group or denomination. A documentary about the Phelps family that aired on the BBC was titled, The Most Hated Family in America.”
— “At Chabad of Great Neck, which according to the church website will be picketed at noon on Friday, Sept. 25, Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky said he was aware of the protest and planned to pay no attention to it.”
— “Protest are also planned outside the Great Neck Synagogue, North Shore Hebrew Academy High School and at Temple Beth Israel. The group also plans to picket outside the East Midwood Jewish Center on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, and in Manhattan at the 92nd Street Y, the Jewish Theological Seminary and at the United Nations. The group’s past targets include appliance stores that sell Swedish vacuum cleaners.”
— “The group’s website states that Jews killed Christ and that, ‘God hates these dark-hearted, rebellious, disobedient Jews.” The fifty-member church claims to have staged over 40,000 protests across the country.”
— “The automated telephone greeting at the Westboro Baptist Church features a pleasant, Southern-accented female voice who advises if you are a ‘Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, or Christ-rejecting Jew,’ that ‘God hates you all,’ and recommends visiting the church’s website where more information is available.

— Additional Reports:

— Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports on “Westboro Baptist Church”

— Southern Poverty Law Center listing of “Westboro Baptist Church” as a hate group

Press Release: “Former Muslims Call on DOJ, US Commission On Civil Rights to Investigate Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Apostates from Islam”

Press Release: “Former Muslims Call on DOJ, US Commission On Civil Rights to Investigate Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Apostates from Islam”

11856 Balboa Boulevard, #241
Granada Hills, CA 91344
www.formermuslimsunited.org
For more information, contact Former Muslims United director Nonie Darwish
(818) 314-3972 or info@formermuslimsunited.org

MEDIA ADVISORY:
Former Muslims Call on DOJ, US Commission On Civil Rights to Investigate Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Apostates from Islam

WASHINGTON, DC (September 21,2009) – Prominent former Muslims — apostates from Islam– will hold a press conference Thursday, September 24 to announce the launch of a new civil liberties organization, Former Muslims United, and the start of a national campaign to educate the American public and policymakers about the threat from authoritative Shariah — Islamic law– to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims.

At the press conference,Former Muslims United founders Nonie Darwish and Ibn Warraq (both internationally-respected authors and scholars) will release letters calling on the Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate possible hate crimes and civil rights violations against apostates from Islam, including the circumstances of the current Florida case of 17-year old Rifqa Bary, a former Muslim.  The letters are also signed by Former Muslims United co-founders Mohammad Asghar, Wafa Sultan and Amil Imani.

Darwish and Warraq will release the text of Former Muslim United’s groundbreaking “Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims,” copies of which will be received in the offices of dozens of Muslim leaders across America by September 25, the 220th anniversary of Congress passing the Bill of Rights.

Security at the press conference will be tightly maintained, and photo identification will be required of all attendees.
EVENT: Launch of Former Muslims United
PLACE: Longworth House Office Building,Hearing Room 1334
DATE: Thursday, September 24, 2009
TIME: 2:00 p.m.

All Former Muslims United founders are available for interviews.
For more information, contact Former Muslims United director Nonie Darwish at 818-314-3972 or email info@formermuslimsunited.org

NYC: UANI Calls on The Essex House to Refuse to Host President Ahmadinejad

For Immediate Release
September 21, 2009
Contact: Kimmie Lipscomb, press@unitedagainstnucleariran.com
Phone: (212) 554-3296

UANI Calls on The Essex House to Refuse to Host President Ahmadinejad

New York, NY – United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) today called on The Essex House hotel to refuse to host President Ahmadinejad and offered the Essex House an opportunity to clarify its role as the host of a banquet for the Iranian delegation and as host for a speech by President Ahmadinejad on September 25, 2009 during his stay in New York for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

In a letter to Scott Dawson, General Manager of the Essex House, UANI President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace wrote “UANI calls on the Essex House to clarify and reconsider its decision to host the banquet and address and instead decline to provide such a venue for President Ahmadinejad.  By doing business with the Iranian government the Essex House is accepting blood money from a regime that brutally suppresses its own people and that is a danger to global security.  Given that other area venues including the New York Helmsley Hotel and Gotham Hall have rejected hosting President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian delegation, the Essex House’s provision of a forum for Ahmadinejad’s propaganda is even more egregious.”

To the extent that the Essex House persists in its plans to host President Ahmadinejad, UANI will call on members of the public to boycott Jumeirah properties.

Following UANI’s campaigns last week, The Helmsley Hotel and Gotham Hall have both cancelled events in which President Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak.

Click here to send a letter to The Essex House New York

Click here to learn how UANI has partnered with GE against doing business in Iran
# # #

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race. In short, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran is a danger to world peace.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

The Objectives of United Against a Nuclear Iran

1. Inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran’s role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad;
2. Heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran poses to the region and the world;
3. Mobilize public support, utilize media outreach, and persuade our elected leaders to voice a robust and united American opposition to a nuclear Iran;
4. Lay the groundwork for effective US policies in coordination with European and other allies;
5. Persuade the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people, and;
6. Promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures.

Buffalo, New York – AP: “Psychiatric defense likely in NY wife beheading”

Buffalo, New York – AP: “Psychiatric defense likely in NY wife beheading”
— AP reports:
— “A man accused of beheading his wife at the television station they founded to counter stereotypes of Muslims is likely to claim emotional distress was behind the killing in hopes of avoiding a murder conviction.
— “Muzzammil Hassan, 45, is scheduled to be tried in January on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan. A psychiatric defense would allow jurors to find him guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter, according to Hassan’s attorney, who made his plans known during a pretrial conference Friday.”
— “‘Extreme emotional disturbance is not an insanity defense,’ attorney James Harrington said afterward. ‘It’s related to the state of mind of the person at the time.'”