Asking a question is out of the question

Security hassles a few Christians that ask a question at a Muslim booth that invites people to ask questions. Hmmm.



(HT: Veritas)

Here is the explanation from Acts 17 Ministries:

On June 21st, I moderated a peaceful public debate between Mary Jo Sharp and Ehteshaam Gulam. After the debate, Nabeel, Mary Jo, and I went to the Dearborn Arab Festival, which had already become an open celebration of persecution against Christians. The festival organizers had declared that Christians could not distribute materials on the public sidewalks or street, and, when the matter was brought before the courts, the judge agreed that Christians could not freely distribute information during the festival. (Note: This decision has been defended in the media by claiming that the “no-distributing-materials” rule applied to everyone, and therefore wasn’t unfair to Christians. However, anyone who was at the festival knows that this is not true. People were walking up and down the sidewalks distributing pamphlets and brochures, right in front of security. The rule was only enforced against Christians, and therefore only the rights of Christians were violated.)

Muslim security guards (one of whom had “Hezbollah” tattooed down his forearm) took things a step further and wouldn’t even allow Christians to talk about their beliefs openly. Security guards also repeatedly entrapped Christians in an attempt to get us to violate the court order.

This even happened to me, despite the fact that I wasn’t talking to anyone about Christianity or Islam. I had a pamphlet in my front pocket, and one of the Muslim security guards walked up to me and said, “That looks like a really interesting pamphlet. Could I have it?” She even had her walkie-talkie in hand! Fortunately, I had already heard about this woman and other Muslim security guards doing this repeatedly at the festival, so I didn’t fall for it. That’s when Nabeel and Mary Jo entered the tent in an attempt to question a group of Muslims about a horribly inaccurate pamphlet they were distributing. What happened next may be outlined as follows:

• We see a booth that is specifically for answering questions people have about Islam.
  
• Nabeel walks up to the booth and attempts to ask a question.
  
• When the Muslims don’t want to talk on camera, Nabeel begins walking away.
  
• One of the Muslims (a former member of Tupac’s crew!) then invites Nabeel back for a dialogue.
  
• Security grabs our camera and forces MJ to turn it off. Security then breaks up the discussion, despite the fact that the Muslims at the booth agreed that we could record the conversation.
  
• We leave the tent and ask a police officer if we are free to record; he responds that we are in a public area and can record all we want. He also says that it is illegal for anyone to touch our cameras or force us to turn them off.
  
• We walk up to some non-Muslim security guards and ask if we can record a dialogue; they reply in the affirmative.
  
• Nabeel attempts to reestablish the discussion, but this time the Muslims at the booth don’t want to talk on camera.
  
• We leave the booth, and I see the woman who had grabbed the camera and forced MJ to turn it off. I begin recording the woman (in case we need to identify her later), at which point she gets on her walkie-talkie and informs her fellow Muslim security guards that we are harassing her.
  
• Following their pattern of entrapping Christians at the festival, the Muslim security guards convince two teenagers to strike up a conversation with Nabeel and snatch a pamphlet from his hand.
  
• While one of the teens distracts Nabeel with a conversation, the other snatches the pamphlet from Nabeel's hands.
  
• Within seconds we’re surrounded by a mob of Muslim security guards.
  
• The Muslim security force slaps our cameras, threatens us, shouts profanity at us, openly proclaims that our rights as Americans are meaningless, pushes us, kicks and tries to trip Nabeel, and lies to the police.
  
• The head of security then informs the police that we must be removed from the festival.
  

Fortunately, we got most of this on tape! See the video at the top.

Now think about this. We insisted on our Constitutional rights to (i) ask a question at a booth, and (ii) record in a public place. This was enough to get us banned from a public sidewalk in Dearborn, Michigan (the city with the highest percentage of Muslims in the U.S.). By comparison, the Muslim security guards openly harassed, intimidated, bullied, threatened, entrapped, and assaulted Christians; they openly proclaimed that they don’t care about our rights as American citizens; they used profanity as they insulted us; they lied to police. This behavior was perfectly welcome in Dearborn, even at a family festival! (There were other examples of open hatred as well.)

I have contacted the Arab Chamber of Commerce (the organization responsible for planning the festival, selecting the security team, and deciding that Christians are no longer free to distribute information in public places). I have asked for an apology and for their thoughts on how such horrendous treatment of Christians will be avoided in the future. They have not responded.

Going back to the time of Muhammad, whenever the population of Muslims becomes significant, followers of other religions are suppressed, and the proclamation of non-Muslim beliefs is forbidden. This second-class status for non-Muslims is prescribed by Sharia, and the victims are called "dhimmis." Welcome to Sharia in the United States, my friends.