The Freep’s top Islamist wages jihad with the pen in this one-sided propaganda. via Dearborn Arab festival being moved after attendees antagonized | Detroit Free Press | freep.com Niraj Warikoo
After four years of increasing tensions
between some Christian missionaries and local Muslims, the annual Arab
International Festival in Dearborn is being moved from a street that has
open access to a public park that could restrict admission to paid
attendees.
Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly said Friday
that the city plans to shift the festival — the biggest annual outdoor
gathering of Arab Americans in the U.S. — from Warren Avenue to Ford
Woods Park, near the corner of Ford and Greenfield roads. One of the
reasons for the move is liability concerns; the city has been hit with
lawsuits from some Christian missionaries alleging their free speech
rights were curtailed at the festival.
“Considering everything we’ve been through
and what happened in the past,” said O’Reilly, the city wanted a place
“where you can have a controlled site.”
The 18-year-old festival, held in June by
the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, promotes Arab-American culture
and business along Warren Avenue. Fay Baydoun, executive director of the
chamber, said Friday that the group is working with the city on
negotiating a price to rent out the park for the three-day festival
planned for June 15-17.
There could be an admission fee to enter
the park for the festival, which includes carnival games, amusement park
rides and numerous vendor booths on Arab-American culture.
The festival has long had Christian
missionaries in attendance, and there weren’t any tensions in the past.
However, that changed in 2009 after aggressive new groups of
missionaries started to arrive. That year, some yelled at festival-goers
“that they were going to hell because they were Muslim,” according to a
Dearborn police report. Some also brought video cameras and recorded
their encounters, which they posted online, sparking complaints about
Dearborn’s Muslim population.
The tensions resulted in some Christian
missionaries being escorted out. The next year, a group of them were
arrested. They were later acquitted after a trial and have filed a
lawsuit against the city. Other Christian groups also have filed a
lawsuit, saying their First Amendment rights were restricted. Some have
said that treatment at the festival proves that Dearborn is under
sharia, Islamic law, a claim the mayor repeatedly has dismissed as
ludicrous.
The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office has
handled security at the event the past two years. The Dearborn Police
Department is expected to handle it this year, O’Reilly said.
The tensions escalated last year after a
group called the Bible Believers brought a pig’s head mounted on a pole
along with signs that denigrated Islam and its prophet, Mohammed, in
explicit terms. Observant Muslims consider pigs to be dirty.
In response, some children got upset and a few hurled objects, including water bottles, at them.
Some children? Let’s check that video Niraj.
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