Throwing Rifqa to the Wolves
ICC Note
Rifqa Bary, a Christian convert teenager who run away from her Muslim family in Ohio, faces danger after a Florida court decided to send her back to Ohio .
By Jamie Glazov
10/15/2009 Islam (FrontPageMag)-Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Pamela Geller, founder, editor and publisher of the popular and award-winning weblog AtlasShrugs.com. She has won acclaim for her interviews with internationally renowned figures, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye’or, Natan Sharansky, and many others, and has broken numerous important stories — notably the questionable sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign. Her op-eds have been published in The Washington Times, The American Thinker, Israel National News, Frontpage Magazine, World Net Daily, and New Media Journal, among other publications.
FP: Pamela Geller, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.
Rifqa Bary is being sent back to Ohio . You have been following the developments. Tell us what is going on and what it means.
Geller: Rifqa Bary is a teenage apostate. She escaped her devout Muslim home when her parents were advised by members of their extremist mosque that Rifqa had converted to Christianity.
Rifqa Bary’s father threatened to kill her if “she had this Jesus” in her heart. And so she ran away to Florida , as far away as she could get, and stayed with sympathetic Christians. She has since been placed in foster care, and the battle rages on to get this young woman to return to her devout Muslim family and Muslim community. Having spoken to many apostates in the States, living as a Christian in a devout Muslim household is not an option, despite her father’s dubious assertions.
FP: So what happened in court?
Geller: There were key developments in Judge Daniel Dawson’s juvenile court yesterday. It was a bizarre scene. Ohio started their own proceedings to get Rifqa back when they lost jurisdiction two months back. So two courts met at the same time on the same matter; both listening to each other’s statements via audio link. Both judges were deciding the case of whether Rifqa Bary goes back to Ohio . To say this was unusual is understatemen.
The upshot is that Ohio has jurisdiction and the Florida court maintains emergency jurisdiction at least until the 27h of October. The law is clear on this.
“No. She will die, she will die in her society. Society won’t leave her alone. Even if the family, Mother and Father has a little sympathy, but not society, society is worse because she has gone too far. The society will never leave the family in peace. They have to take a stand for this, because it is the shame. Rifqa has brought a shame for their religion and for their society.”
FP: Why do you think there is such silence about apostasy when this is actually causing the case itself? The media is saying nothing about this.
Geller: It’s indicative of how sick our society has become. Spinelessness and ignorance are a lethal combination. Apostasy is the motive behind the death threat. Period. Of course the FDLE found no evidence of a threat, they did not investigate threats of a religious nature. Perhaps the upside (if there could be such a thing) to this terrible case is that the media is being exposed for their conquered, dhimmi approach to the story. And that is why new media/alternative reporting was so critical to this story.
FP: Overall, what do you think this case has signified? What has been its meaning? What have your own impressions been?
Geller: This is a landmark case on so many levels. The obvious is the media’s auto-censorship. Their bias is so fixed that they would rather put a teenage girl’s life at risk than report the story. Why wouldn’t they err on the side of caution? What is Rifqa Bary so terrified of? The media’s indifference is devastating.
It’s the proverbial teaching moment. Why isn’t the media giving Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq, Nonie Darwish and any of the thousands of apostates living in the shadows, front page exposure in the media, to help push back, push Islamic supremacism back to the fringe of civilization?
Further, this case pits Sharia law and its absolutism against the rule of law in America . If we turn a blind eye to the execution of sharia law in our society, is that not our sanction? Are we not complicit if we are not vigilant?
The silence of the media, pundits, law enforcement, psychologists, the court system renders the girls, the women, the men murdered in the name of Islam nothing more than a rumor. They are invisible and count for nothing. It speaks volumes to the West’s respect and sanctity of life.
The larger picture is the clash of civilizations, a clash of human systems. The battle is for our very soul.
