Pamela Geller has discovered the reason for her exclusion from the forthcoming Conservative Political Action Conference – CPAC has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

She claims that the conference organisers have always taken a negative attitude towards her “because of the influence of what can only be described as Muslim Brotherhood facilitators or operatives like Suhail Khan and Grover Norquist”. This is of course the same conspiracy theory that got Frank Gaffney banned from CPAC two years ago.

Geller continues: “I think at this point people need to know just how deeply we have been infiltrated. What are they doing at CPAC? Essentially they are enforcing the Sharia. Under the Sharia, the blasphemy laws, you cannot say, you cannot offend, you cannot criticize and you cannot insult Islam. That is effectively what they’re doing, they are enforcing the Sharia.”

Meanwhile, Geller’s partner in hate crime Robert Spencer reveals that he too has been banned from CPAC. Spencer was due to receive the People’s Choice Blog Award, sponsored by Right Wing News and TheTeaParty.net, having topped an online poll. But he says CPAC organisers told him he couldn’t attend the conference to accept the award unless he agreed not to attack Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, which he refused to do.

So, well done to Geller and Spencer. Through their extremist views and crazed talk of Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators they have managed to get themselves denied a platform at one of the most influential gatherings of the US Right, where other more mainstream Islamophobes are made welcome.

(Via Salon)

Two exchange students attending school in Perham, Minnesota say they were kicked out of a church there when they questioned a nationally known speaker who says “Islam equals terrorism.”

The boys were kicked out of the Assembly of God church in Perham during a question answer period following a speech by Walid Shoebat. Shoebat says he is a former terrorist, and claims to be an anti-terrorism expert. He now calls Islam the devil and tours the country speaking to churches and schools – even collecting fees from Homeland Security.

CNN has exposed Shoebat, calling him a fraud. Today, the DC based Council on American-Islamic Relations contacted WDAY and said it is calling for a meeting with Assembly of God church leaders in Perham, in hopes of strengthening interfaith relations and promoting understanding.

Continue reading →

A grassroots campaign aimed at countering hateful anti-Muslim ads in New York’s subway system has gone live, placing posters in ten locations across New York City.

Called Talk Back to Hate, the campaign first launched its crowdfunding appeal in January in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, seeking to raise the money necessary to post advertisements in major subway stations from among the citizens of New York.

“I started the project because, like many people I’ve spoken to, these ads feel like an attack on our most basic communal values,” Akiva Freidlin, the creator of the project, said in an interview with ThinkProgress at the time. “They’re doubly offensive, for both attempting to demonize and intimidate individual members of a particular religious group, and trying to exploit the city’s grief and anger.”

Talk Back to Hate’s poster message was chosen from various suggestions submitted by contributors to the campaign. The image depicts a pair of arms wrapped around the Big Apple that is New York and the winning words “Hatred is easy. It is love that requires true strength.” The poster also features the names of those who donated to make the poster a reality. The ad is currently running at some of the New York subway’s most-trafficked stops, including Times Square and Rockefeller Center, as well as eight other locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Fundraising for asecond round of ads is already on-going.

ThinkProgress, 5 March 2013