Texas Appealite Court Deals Blow to Islam Lawfare-- Muslims Appeal

ANN ARBOR, MI – Yesterday, seven Texas-area Muslim organizations filed an appeal of the unanimous ruling of the Texas Second Court of Appeals at Forth Worth, which protected the free speech rights of internet journalists and at the same time dealt a blow to the legal jihad being waged by radical Muslim groups throughout the United States. The Court ruling authored by Justice Terrie Livingston, dismissed the libel lawsuit filed against internet reporter Joe Kaufman by the seven Muslim organizations.

The lawsuit against Kaufman was funded by the Muslim Legal Fund for America. The head of that organization, Khalil Meek, admitted on a Muslim radio show that lawsuits were being filed against Kaufman and others to set an example. Indeed, for the last several years, Muslim groups in the U.S. have engaged in the tactic of filing meritless lawsuits to silence any public discussion of Islamic terrorist threats. This tactic, referred to by some as Islamist Lawfare uses our laws and legal system to silence critics and promote Islamic rule in America.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan provided the lead attorney to represent Kaufman, at no charge. The Law Center attorney, Brandon Bolling, was assisted by Texas attorney Thomas S. Brandon, Jr. who acted as local counsel, and Los Angeles, CA attorneys William Becker, Jr. and Manuel S. Klausner.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “This frivolous lawsuit is an example of the legal jihad being waged by radical Islamic organizations throughout our nation. These lawsuits are aimed at stifling the free speech rights of Americans who dare to expose their agenda. They intentionally file lawsuits to intimidate reporters who seek to expose their agenda. By making it costly to defend against their lawsuits, they hope journalists will refrain from writing about the threat to our nation.”

Kaufman, a full-time investigative reporter, has written extensively on Radical Islamic terrorism in America. He was sued because of his September 28, 2007 article titled “Fanatic Muslim Family Day” published by Front Page Magazine, a major online news website. Kaufman’s article exposed the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Islamic Association of Northern Texas (IANT) ties to the radical terrorist group Hamas.

Kaufman’s article called ICNA a radical Muslim organization that has ties to Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Kaufman, ICNA is an umbrella organization for South Asian-oriented mosques and Islamic centers in the United States created as an American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of Pakistan.

A 1991 internal memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood laid out their plan to destroy America from within: “[The Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

According to former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked several years in the Bureau’s Counter Terrorism Division, every major Muslim organization is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Significantly, neither ICNA nor IANT, which were mentioned in Kaufman’s article, sued Kaufman. It is speculated that ICNA and IANT were afraid of being subjected to pretrial discovery.

On the other hand, none of the seven plaintiffs that sued Kaufman were even mentioned in his article.

The seven Muslim organizations that sued Kaufman are the Islamic Society of Arlington, Texas, Islamic Center of Irving, DFW Islamic Educational Center, Inc., Dar Elsalam Islamic Center, Al Hedayah Islamic Center, Islamic Association of Tarrant County, and Muslim American Society of Dallas. All are affiliated with CAIR, one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the successful federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation.

In what should be welcomed news to internet journalists, the Appellate Court specifically rejected the Plaintiffs’ contention that Kaufman is not a “media defendant.” The Court held that the Texas statute that gives procedural protections to traditional electronic and print media, including the right to a pretrial appeal, also covers internet journalists. Thus, the Texas Statue entitled Kaufman the right to appeal the lower court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the frivolous libel claim before a time-consuming and expensive trial. Most parties have to wait until after a trial before they can appeal an unfavorable lower court ruling.

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes America’s Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life. It supports a strong national defense and an independent and sovereign United States of America. The Law Center accomplishes its mission through litigation, education, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. You may reach the Thomas More Law Center at (734) 827-2001 or visit our website at www.thomasmore.org.

By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ

June 29, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Joe Kaufman, Chairman of Americans Against Hate is today free to carry on his battle against the domestic stealth jihad, content in the knowledge that an entirely frivolous lawsuit brought against him by the Islamist "B" team, has been dismissed by a Texas court.

The case came as the result of an October 12, 2007 protest organized by Mr. Kaufman against a "Muslim Family Day" sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America [ICNA] and held at the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park.

The Muslim Family Day event drew 9,000 supporters.

According to Mr. Kaufman the lawsuit was initiated by a consortium of radical Muslim groups including the Muslim American Society [MAS], three local mosques owned by the North American Islamic Trust [NAIT] and others, who "filed a lawsuit against me for the simple reason that they wanted to punish me financially for writing about the terrorist ties of their friends. They claimed that I wrote an article which libeled them. Yet not one of the organizations suing me was mentioned in the piece." [source, http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35372]

Despite the fact that none of these groups were even mentioned in Kaufman's "offensive" article, the lawsuit went forward, a sure sign that it was a SLAPP lawsuit [strategic litigation against public participation] undertaken with the dual intent of denying members of the public their First Amendment rights while attempting to bankrupt defendants via the cost of mounting a legal defense. Unfortunately, Texas has no anti-SLAPP legislation.

These essentially groundless legal actions, when brought by radical Muslims have been termed "Islamist Lawfare" and they figure significantly as an integral part of a low intensity, deadly serious war being waged in courtrooms across America and Europe.

As Brooke Goldstein, Director of the Middle East Forum's Legal Project states, "Islamists with financial means have launched a "legal jihad", filing a series of malicious lawsuits, in American courts and abroad, and against anyone who speaks out against or writes about radical Islam and its sources of financing and support. This type of lawfare is often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, and undertaken as a means to intimidate, demoralize and bankrupt defendants. The lawsuits are often based on frivolous claims ranging from defamation to workplace harassment to plain Islamophobia, and have resulted in books being banned and pulped, in thousands of dollars worth of fines and in publishing houses and newspapers rejecting important works on counter-terrorism out of fear of being the next target." [source, http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/5103]

Echoing the truth of Ms. Goldstein's analysis, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation Executive Director Mahdi Bray stated on a radio broadcast, "Folks, that's got to be the next horizon for our community. In order to deal with these haters, these bashers, these Islamophobes, we've got to be willing to spend our money in a court of law."

The cost of defending against even the most ridiculous charge in a legal proceeding is daunting, and Mr. Kaufman estimates that the total cost to defend himself was close to $100,000.

Fortunately the counter-terrorism community stepped up to the plate in a big way with David Horowitz, Dr. Daniel Pipes, Brandon Bolling [Kaufman's lead attorney], Dick Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center. Bill Becker and Manny Klausner of the Horowitz Freedom Center, Tom Brandon of Whitaker, Chalk, Swindle & Sawyer, Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Brooke Goldstein of the Middle East Forum, David Yerushalmi of SANE and Tom Trento, Ann Fishman and Peter Feaman of the Florida Security Council all contributing legal expertise and funding to aid Kaufman's defense.

Mr. Kaufman's refusal to surrender to the domestic stealth jihad is admirable and should send a powerful message to the radical Muslim community whose intent is crush its critics; that there are Americans who are willing to put everything on the line in order to defend the interests of the West against a well financed band of Islamic fanatics who will stop at nothing short of the imposition of Shari'a.

********Many thanks to the Thomas More Law Center!******

Trouble is Islam is not a religion of peace. According to the Quran, Islam should be the only religion.....even if it takes killing people to do so. They expect us to be tolerant of them, but they are not tolerant of Christians. Here is an example: http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102738
Al-Qaida-linked thugs now executing children
Mother watches sons being dragged away

Al-Shabaad militia man

An al-Qaida-linked terror group has been identified as the organization that dragged off three children of a Christian father in Somalia and executed two of them by beheading, according to a horrifying new report from Compass Direct News.

The Islamic extremists identified as being with a group called al-Shabaab, which has been described by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization, attacked the family and killed the boys because their father refused to provide information about a church leader, the report said.

“I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” said the mother, Batula Ali Arbow. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered.”

A short time later, 7-year-old Abdulahi Musa Yusuf came running back to his mother, wailing and crying. Dead were his brothers 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, according to the report.
The killers continued searching Kenya's refugee camps to find the father, Musa Mohammed Yusuf, who was gone at the time, the report said. He was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village in Somalia before April, when the family fled to a Kenyan camp.

Word of the tragedy is just being reported because of the remote area (20 miles outside of Kismayo) where the attack happened several weeks ago.

According to the report, al-Shabaab militants arrived in Yonday village in February, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him about his work with Salat Mberwa, a leader of 66 Somali Christians meeting in an undisclosed location. Yusuf told them he knew nothing.

The terrorist left, but promised to return, so Yusuf fled.

Not finding him on their return, the attackers killed the boys, the report said.

U.S. government agencies describe the al-Shabaab militants as terrorists who hold “mobile Shariah courts” as they travel, often dispensing Quran-prescribed punishments such as amputations on the spot.

Al-Shabaab reportedly controls large sections of southern Somalia, a land where no formal government has been in control for years.

Known formally as Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahidin, the group has been involved in a violent insurgency since 2006. It has released statements praising al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, and claims to have succeeded in multiple bombings and shootings in Mogadishu. Its victims have included peace activists, aid workers and journalists, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

Minnesota Public Radio has reported that the organization is suspected of recruiting young men from Minnesota, which has the largest population of Somalis in the United States, to launch the terror attacks in Somalia.

Shirwa Ahmad, who is described by the FBI as the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terror bombing attack in Somalia, reportedly began his training in Minnesota.

The boys’ mother said she buried their bodies after the terrorists left.

Yusuf, who had fled to Kismayo, got word of the attack and spent several weeks seeking help to reach Kenya.

The remaining members of the family later gathered at the refugee camp, where they reportedly are living without shelter or sleeping mats.

Interviewed by Compass, Mberwa said the terrorists “are on our heads … even here in the refugee camp we are not safe.”

The report said an example of the vicious nature of the al-Shabaab attackers came just a week ago, when “in a show of power in the capital city stronghold of Mogadishu … hard-line Islamic insurgents sentenced four young men each to amputation of a hand and a foot as punishment for robbery.”

“After mosques announced when the amputations would take place, the extremists carried them out by machete in front of about 300 people on Thursday (June 25) at a military camp,” the report said.

Many Somalis, while Muslims, are moderate and the strict and bloody enforcement of such penalties has shocked, according to Compass

Another previous attack had indicated how dedicated the Islamic terrorists were to finding Christian leaders. Late last year, they interrogated Mberwa’s son, Abdi, about his father's whereabouts. Not getting the information they wanted, they beat him with a gun until leaving him for dead, although he was hospitalized and survived.

Abdi Mbera told Compass it is urgent to help Christians flee Somalia, “before they are wiped out.”

Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin earlier reported when al-Shabaab was linked to the stoning execution of a 13-year-old girl.”

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