Rifqa Bary

It looks like the Rifqa Bary saga has come to an end, as both Rifqa and her parents have agreed that she can remain in foster care until she turns 18 in August, at which point she will be an adult:

Ultimately, the question of how to heal the deep rift between Fathima Rifqa Bary and her parents was too big for a courthouse.

Six months to the day since she ran away from home, Rifqa and her parents agreed yesterday in Franklin County Juvenile Court to stop arguing.

They decided that Rifqa would not move back home, at least for now, and they agreed that they would try to solve their problems with counseling.

Rifqa admitted she was unruly in running away from home in July, fleeing to Florida and the home of a married pastor couple. She will not be punished with any sanctions, such as fines or community service, for that admission.

Franklin County Children Services will retain temporary custody of Rifqa, who is living in a foster home. She likely will stay in foster care until her 18th birthday, after which she is an adult and free to live where she chooses.

While this may be the end of this particular saga, I highly doubt this is the last we have heard from her.  She already has ties to Lou Engle and considering that Engle has recently become a bona fide Religious Right leader, I think it is safe to assume that once she is an adult, Bary will find herself peddling her tale of persecution and deliverance to right-wing audiences all over the country.

John Stemberger, who represented Rifqa Bary in her Florida dependency case, has been given space in the Orlando Sentinel to complain that the paper never took any of his wild allegations seriously, saying the paper's coverage was "consistently biased and disingenuous" and accusing the paper of having a "religious-like commitment to protect Islam from any and all examination or criticism." 

Of course, one reason for the Sentinel's failure to take Stemberger's allegations seriously might have something to do with the fact there was essentialy no evidence to support any thing he said.  But Stemberger doesn't see it that way:

[T]he Sentinel never quoted directly from the Koran or other Muslim holy books, stating what Islam clearly teaches about punishment of apostate believers, or that the United Nations reports 5,000 Islamic honor killings each year. The Sentinel also ignored the Facebook page with Rifqa's photo that included 120 members from Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and Columbus and listed its purpose as: "We need to kill her."

There are millions of Muslims in the U.S. who are peaceful and law-abiding citizens who should be fully embraced as fellow Americans. However, there is a growing minority of Muslims in our country who are radical and dangerous. We need to protect the former and expose the later. The Sentinel, in caving to political correctness, has refused to make this critical distinction.

"Political correctness"?  That sure does seem to be the word of the day when it comes to right-wingers complaining about Islam.

You know what else the Sentinel never reported?  This:

An attorney suing Dollar Rent-A-Car has apologized for filing a lawsuit that characterized the Irish as hopelessly tethered to pubs and pints and unfit to drive the highways of America.

John Stemberger admitted he made a mistake and promised Wednesday to rewrite the negligence lawsuit he filed in March.

The suit was filed on behalf of the family of Carmel Elizabeth Cunningham, an Irish woman who was killed last year when her boyfriend, Sean McGrath, crashed their rental car. He is also Irish.

Prosecutors say McGrath, 33, was drunk at the time of the crash and have charged him with manslaughter. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

In the suit, Stemberger claimed Dollar "knew or should have known about the unique cultural and ethnic customs existing in Ireland which involve the regular consumption of alcohol at `Pubs' as a major component to Irish social life.''

He went on to charge that Dollar "knew or should have known that Sean McGrath would have a high propensity to drink alcohol.''

All I can conclude from this is that the Sentinel's commitment to protect Stemberger "from any and all examination or criticism has compromised its ability to objectively understand and report the news in this case."

Rifqa Bary has been sent back to Ohio, but that isn't stopping the Right's crusade to keep her away from her Muslim parents, which is why they are now claiming that authorities are trying to "cut her off from all Christian fellowship," by monitoring her phone and internet usage, as the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission alleges.

The Traditional Values Coalition takes it even further, claiming Bary has been put into "solitary confinement":

An Ohio judge agreed with Rifqa’s parents and her father’s Muslim attorney to put the girl into solitary confinement. She will have her phone calls monitored and her internet use monitored as well. Her parents have been working with attorneys with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization with ties to Islamic extremist groups.

Bary’s father, Mohamed, has denied threatening to kill his daughter, but part of Islamic theology is lying to infidels. It is called “taqqiya.” This doctrine teaches Muslims to practice deception, fraud and double standards in defending Islam from infidels.

Bary’s parents are also in the U.S. illegally from Sri Lanka. In addition, Rifqa Bary’s parents attend the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, a hotbed of terrorist-related activities.

I fear that Bary’s parents will ship Rifqa off to a mental asylum in Sri Lanka where she will be browbeaten into denouncing Christianity. If this fails, she can be legally killed for apostacy. Or, her father may simply murder her in an Islam-sanctioned “honor killing.”

Rifqa Bary is facing a death penalty – thanks to courts in Florida and in Ohio.

Bary is scheduled for a hearing in a few weeks and, not surprisingly, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and various other right-wing anti-Islam activists are organizing a rally on her behalf outside the courthouse, as Geller explained to Front Page Magazine:

Geller: I am organizing a “Rally for Rifqa” in co-operation with Robert Spencer, bestselling author and director of Jihadwatch, and Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Jihad. It will be held on November 16th, the day of Rifqa’s dependency hearing in support of the reinstatement of her rights and freedom of religion.

FP: This is, of course, about Rifqa. But it is also about much more right?

Geller: Yes Jamie. It’s not just Rifqa’s battle. She is our proxy in the battle for freedom of religion and individual rights. Rifqa Bary’s case is the landmark case in the civil rights battle of this new century.

...

FP: How is Rifqa doing?

Geller: Rifqa Bary’s civil rights are being violated. She is being held prisoner: no phone, no internet, no public school. Why? What is her crime? She is being held under house arrest in accord with Sharia law, which stipulates that female apostates are to be imprisoned until they recant. Ohio is effectively practicing Sharia law.

Where are Rifqa’s civil rights? Where is her freedom of religion? Barack Obama said in Cairo in June 2009 that he would fight for the right of Muslim women in the U.S. to wear the hijab. Why isn’t Obama fighting for their right NOT to wear the hijab? Why isn’t he taking a stand for Rifqa’s right not to be a Muslim at all?

Jim Zorn, a children’s services attorney, is the one who asked Franklin County Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich to forbid Rifqa from using the Internet and her cell phone.

Zorn explained: “What we want to restrict is the other people, the other organizations, the other forces, that have interjected themselves into this case inappropriately, and have caused the additional problems that we’ve seen.”

Her father may have threatened to kill her, and Zorn and Goodrich are keeping her away from the people who saved her and took her in.

The isolation of Rifqa is an egregious crime. How will we know if she is not being psychologically or physically abused? How will we know if she is all right?

Rifqa Bary should be posting to a Facebook page every day. The Ohio authorities and the Islamic supremacists who are pulling their strings are not protecting this girl, but rather are endangering her life.

This probably won't be the end of this sorry saga, but it will at least get Rifqa Bary out of Florida and hopefully away from the likes of John Stemberger, the Florida Security Council, Blake and Beverly Lorenz, Lou Engle, and all the others who have sought to exploit this situation for their own purposes - from the Orlando Sentinel:

An Orange County judge ordered Ohio teen runaway Fathima Rifqa Bary back to that state, ending the 17-year-old girl's three-month stay in Florida as she battled her parents over her religious freedom and allegations of abuse.

Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson signed an order Friday afternoon asking the Florida Department of Children and Families to make arrangements to send Rifqa back to Ohio, where she is bound for a new stint with a foster family.

A DCF spokeswoman confirmed her agency received Dawson's ruling.

"This order indicates that the Court has relinquished its emergency jurisdiction and orders the Department to arrange the transportation of the child to the proper authorities with Franklin County Children Services in Ohio," spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said.

Hoeppner said DCF will not discuss details of Rifqa's transfer from a foster family in Central Florida to one in Ohio. She cited safety reasons.

Rifqa's private attorney, John Stemberger, has not returned phone calls seeking comment.

Reached by phone Friday afternoon, Rifqa's father, Mohamed Bary, was laughing and giddy during a brief conversation with the Orlando Sentinel. He declined comment, though, citing a gag order in the case.