Litigation Jihad

Robert Spencer, Human Events

Islamic supremacists are at war with freedom of speech in the West: The 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference has been campaigning for years now at the United Nations to compel Western states to criminalize “religious hatred”—that is, honest discussions of how Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and to recruit peaceful Muslims to their cause. One little-noted weapon in this war is the courtroom: using libel and defamation laws as weapons to cow critics and intimidate them into silence. My courageous and indefatigable colleague Pamela Geller is the latest target.

Muslim foes of the freedom of speech have used this weapon frequently over the years. The Hamas-linked Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has sued many, and has threatened legal action against many more. In 2006 CAIR dropped a $1.35 million libel suit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR, who had called CAIR a “terrorist front organization,” after Whitehead’s lawyers asked probing questions about the group during the discovery process.

In another notable case, billionaire Saudi Khalid bin Mahfouz sued writer Rachel Ehrenfeld in libel-friendly Britain for writing in her book Funding Evil that he was involved in funding Hamas and al-Qaeda. Bin Mahfouz denied that he had knowingly given money to either. This case became the foundation for new laws protecting American writers from libel rulings in other countries.

Now Ohio lawyer Omar Tarazi has filed a $10-million defamation lawsuit against Geller for elements of her reporting on the case of Rifqa Bary, the teenage girl who kicked off a year-long custody battle when she fled from her home in fear for her life after her Muslim father discovered her conversion to Christianity. (The battle ended when Rifqa turned eighteen and was free to live on her own as a Christian.)


[...]

“Rifqa Bary,” says Geller, “was a rebuke to all of the lies of Islamic supremacist narrative,” since she brought to national attention the Islamic death penalty for apostates, which Islamic apologists in the West routinely deny even exists. The Rifqa Bary affair, Geller explains, was a test case: Would Islamic supremacists be able to manipulate the American legal system to compel someone wishing to leave Islam to return to it, or would her freedom of conscience be upheld?

When Rifqa turned eighteen without having been forced back into her parents’ home, CAIR and its allied forces suffered a major setback. “Her victory,” said Geller, “is a stunning defeat for them and they will take it out on anyone who helped her.”

ACORN Litigates Funding while Pimp Arrested

Motion to Expand 'Probably Unconstitutional' Finding to FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act Pending
James O'Keefe arrested; charged with entering federal property under false pretenses...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning, Brad Blog

On Nov. 12, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging that separate House and Senate Resolutions to bar all funds to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) were unconstitutional Bills of Attainder.

We initially covered the ACORN lawsuit in "ACORN Sues Congress Over Defunding Legislation." The lawsuit directly pertained to House and Senate Appropriations Resolutions which singled out ACORN for a cut-off of federal funds. These were passed after videos emerged which purported to depict some ACORN employees giving advice to individuals posing as a prostitute and a pimp.

As Brad Friedman noted in "ACORN Cleared YET AGAIN of Wrongdoing," former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger then issued an independent report, which found incidents of mismanagement by ACORN but "no criminal wrongdoing." CCR noted that Harshbarger, who reviewed the "complete transcripts," concluded that "the infamous videotapes had been doctored and fully misrepresented the actions of the workers shown."

On Dec. 11, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon granted ACORN's motion for a preliminary injunction [PDF], ruling that it was likely ACORN would prevail on the merits of its claim that the House and Senate Appropriations Resolutions were unconstitutional Bills of Attainder.

Although no doubt fully aware of ACORN's pending lawsuit, on Dec. 10 & Dec. 13 the House and Senate enacted the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, an amalgam of six separate bills, which the President signed into law on Dec. 16. The Act contains a virtually identical provision to cut-off ACORN from federal funds. ACORN responded by filing a motion [PDF] to expand the preliminary injunction to the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

As of this posting, we are awaiting word from CCR. on the fate of ACORN's pending motion.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, James O'Keefe, who posed as the pimp in the ACORN sting video, along with three others, was arrested and "charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony," in relation to an alleged plot to tamper with the telephone system in the office of Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA).