Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Dearbornistan: Islam Beats First Amendment Rights, Jones Goes To Jail

From Winds of Jihad:

Dearbornistan: Islam Beats First Amendment Rights, Jones Goes to Jail


by sheikyermami on April 23, 2011



Update:



Pastor released from jail after being held on $1 ‘peace bond’



Never In America



“The fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it. Indeed, if it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection. For it is a central tenet of the First Amendment that the government must remain neutral in the marketplace of ideas.”



Chief Justice Rehnquist, HUSTLER MAGAZINE v. FALWELL, 1988 (Jawa Report)







Pastor Terry Jones imprisoned to prevent Detroit Koran burning

Here’s Pamela’s take on the collusion and coziness between Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee:



Jailed Jones Prosecutor “Un-Worthy’s” Alliances

Qur’an-burning pastor ordered to stay away from Dearborn mosque for 3 years as planned protest is ruled “likely to provoke violence”



The message Dearborn authorities are sending? Intimidation through the threat of violence works. In this case, even the ACLU is having none of it, and has argued for Jones’ constitutional protections under the First Amendment to be acknowledged and upheld.



Making exceptions against the right of free speech sets a disastrous precedent, which one may fully expect Islamic groups in America to manipulate in the future. An update on this story. “Detroit mosque protest barred by court,” by Bernie Woodall for Reuters, April 22 (thanks to JW):



Updates:



Americans in this culture would rather murder 1,000 people than see a Qur’an burnt, so Jones is jailed

“With freedom comes responsibility. Speak freely, but ….” said Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom. (Islamic headbangers are the speech police now?)

Even the KKK sides with the Muzz: KKK deplores Terry Jones, calls Koran burning un-American (it can’t get any more crazier than that….)



DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) – A controversial Florida pastor was briefly jailed and released on Friday after a Michigan court determined that his planned protest outside a mosque was likely to provoke violence and ordered him to stay away.



Terry Jones, 59, was sent to county jail after he declined to pay a $1 bond as ordered by Judge Mark Somers, who also ordered him to stay away from the Islamic Center of America for three years.



But about an hour later, police said Jones and a supporter, Wayne Sapp, were released from custody after the token $1 bond was paid.



Both Jones and Sapp were had initially refusing to meet the terms of a “peace bond” set by Somers in protest.



A six-person jury in the Dearborn, Michigan court ruled earlier on Friday that their planned protest outside the largest mosque in the United States was “likely to breech [sic] the peace” in a suburb of Detroit with a large Muslim American population.



The one-day jury trial on the planned protest by Jones was streamed live on the Internet and attracted widespread notice for pitting free speech on a highly charged issue against concerns about public safety.



Jones, 59, is the leader of a tiny, fringe fundamentalist church in Gainesville, Florida, who has an unknown until he courted publicity and controversy by burning the Koran as part of what he describes as a campaign against “radical Islam.”



The American Civil Liberties Union petitioned unsuccessfully for the case against Jones to be thrown out.



An ACLU spokeswoman said Dearborn officials had violated free speech protections of the Constitution and given more publicity to a divisive and fringe figure by trying to bar his protest.



“We vehemently disagree with Mr. Jones and his cohorts. However, this is a complete abuse of the court process and all those involved should be ashamed,” said ACLU spokeswoman Rana Elmir.



She added: “I believe that Rev. Jones came to Dearborn for his 15 minutes of fame and the judge and prosecutors have now effectively given him hours of that.”



The Qur’an burning initially passed very quietly in the U.S., and would be forgotten as old news by now except for the murderous rampages that then erupted in the Islamic world (no thanks to Afghan president Hamid Karzai), which, once again, burned far more Qur’ans than Jones and Sapp.



Jones had asked for a permit to stage a protest on Good Friday on public land across from the mosque.



City officials said the mosque and four nearby churches were expected to be crowded with several thousand worshipers at that time.



Dearborn police had denied Jones’s request and asked him to protest instead in a “free speech zone” in front of one of the city buildings.



But Jones, who represented himself in court on Friday, argued that violated his free speech rights.



“The First Amendment is only valid if it allows us to say what other people may not like,” Jones told jurors. “Otherwise, we do not need the First Amendment.”



Police had estimated that it would cost over $46,000 to protect Jones and a handful of supporters from violence if they had protested outside the mosque.



Prosecutors had asked for bond for both Jones and Sapp to be set at $25,000.



Speaking of bad precedents:



Somers said he would consider lifting his three-year ban on visits to the mosque and nearby property by Jones and Sapp if the leaders of the Dearborn mosque asked him to do so in the future…



Dearborn is bad news:



Essentially, authorities in Dearborn, Michigan are asking Pastor Terry Jones to pay the city for the privilege of exercising his First Amendment right. The First Amendment protects one’s right to express their opinions, but does not protect one’s “right” not to be offended.



Keep in mind, Dearborn is a city that enforces Sharia by arresting Christians who peacefully attempt to proselytize Muslims. The mayor was caught in blatant lies by accusing the defendants of charges that the video evidence proved to be untrue. Dearborn authorities relied on testimony that later, again in the videos, proved to be lies.



And, most disturbing, Dearborn authorities have been accused of covering up the fact that “honor killings” may have been committed in the Muslim communities in and around the city.



So, Dearborn is a place with a reputation for placating the Muslim population by enforcing certain Sharia provisions that violate basic American rights.



Love him or hate him, Pastor Jones – or any other person, for that matter – should never have to pay for the privilege of their First Amendment right. It sets a very dangerous precedent, not only in putting a monetary value on freedom of expression, but also in legitimizing threats of violence and terrorism.



Rusty covered some of this case HERE. Video below the fold. (Jawa Report

And this, related, from Reuters:
 

Florida pastor cuts Michigan protest short



























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Florida pastor Jones talks with reporters before holding demonstration asking for a ban on sharia law in the U.S., on steps of Dearborn City Hall in D

Reuters – Florida pastor Terry Jones talks with reporters before holding a demonstration asking for a ban on sharia …

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By Bernie Woodall – Fri Apr 29, 9:25 pm ET





DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) – A controversial Florida pastor banned last week from protesting at a Detroit-area mosque on Friday cut short a demonstration at a city hall largely drowned out by counter-protesters.



Terry Jones, 59, had vowed to return this week, saying that his ban on demonstrating in front of the landmark Islamic Center of America in heavily muslim Dearborn had violated free speech protections of the Constitution.



"We are here today to speak out on issues that pertain to all American citizens," Jones said, using a wireless microphone at a podium set up at the top of the city hall steps.



Separate barricaded zones were created for Jones' protest on the steps of city hall and for counter-protesters across Michigan Avenue, a busy four-lane street. Jones' 75 supporters were outnumbered by about five-to-one.



Police were a visible presence on both sides of the street and on two rooftops across the street from city hall.



About an hour into his protest, Jones walked down the steps of city hall and approached Michigan Avenue, raising his arms as he continued his speech. About 150 people broke past a barrier and approached Jones and his group.



Some 30 police wearing helmets and protective gear stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the street in front of city hall and the event ended about 15 minutes later.



Dearborn Mayor John O'Reilly Jr. told reporters afterward that the event was stopped for security reasons.



"They asked him not to step toward the barricade and he did," O'Reilly said. "Our job is to serve and protect our community and that's what we did."



Three people were taken into custody and are expected to face misdemeanor charges, a Dearborn Police sergeant said.



Jones had scheduled three hours for the demonstration, but it ended after about 75 minutes and he was escorted by police to a waiting car. Dearborn Police had also picked Jones up at Detroit Metro Airport on Thursday.



Jones told reporters as he left he would return to Dearborn. He also said he had wanted the counter-protesters to join him in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.



Counter-demonstrators chanted "Terry Jones go home" and as Jones began speaking the driver of a large truck stopped in traffic on Michigan Avenue sounded its foghorn, setting off a cacophony of car horns that drowned out Jones' speech.



A largely unknown pastor until he courted publicity last year with threats to burn the Koran at his tiny fundamentalist church in Gainesville, Florida, Jones had said his planned protest last week was aimed at "radical Islam."



In March, Jones and Wayne Sapp, 42, staged and videotaped a mock "trial" for the Koran and burned a copy of the holy book, a gesture that prompted riots in Afghanistan and widespread condemnation in the U.S. and around the world.



On April 22, Jones and Sapp were jailed briefly after they refused to pay a $1 bond as ordered by District Court Judge Mark Somers. Somers also barred them from the vicinity of the Islamic Center mosque for three years.



Police in Dearborn denied Jones a permit to protest in front of the Islamic Center. He was tried under an obscure Michigan law dating to 1846 requiring people judged to present a risk to public order to post a "peace bond."



Dearborn's city hall was one of a handful of "free speech zones" where city officials indicated they would allow Jones to hold events. It is more than four miles from the Islamic Center, the largest mosque in the United States.



He has appealed the court's ruling and is represented in litigation by attorneys from the Thomas More Law Center, which is "dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life," according to its web site.



The conservative law center has also represented Christian missionaries who were arrested in Dearborn last year.



(Additional reporting by Teri Murphy; Writing by David Bailey. Editing by Peter Bohan)

And this, related, from No Dhimmitude:
 
Friday, April 22, 2011Americans in this culture would rather murder 1,000 people than see a Qur'an burnt, so Jones is jailed


Some American citizens think that burning a Qur'an is worse than murdering a thousand people, so Terry Jones should not be allowed to demonstrate in front of a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. In fact, he is now in gaol.







Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad testified that Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, who heads the Islamic Center, told him that for some members of his mosque, burning the Quran was considered a major crime. Qazwini expressed concern about how some young members of his mosque might react to Jones, Haddad testified.





Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran said in court that Qazwini talked about how some feel Quran-burning "is worse than more than 1,000 deaths. That's what the citizens of this society believe."





Moran used that as one reason why Jones should not be allowed to protest outside the Islamic Center, saying it would lead to a breach of the peace.





But in his closing arguments, Jones said that the fact that such a view about Quran-burning concerns him, raising questions about Islam and violence, he said.



http://www.freep.com/article/20110422/NEWS02/110422036/Some-Muslims-call-Quran-burning-worse-than-1-000-deaths-police-chief-testifies



Jones is bailed. That's not good enough. It's an outrage that he had to do more than simply pick up a permit and go on his way to demonstrate. But this is Obama's Left dhimmi fascist America now. We're all going to be in jail if this continues. America will be a prison.







DETROIT (WXYZ) - Controversial Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones was taken to the Wayne County Jail, in Detroit, Michigan, after refusing to post a $1 peace bond.



However, someone posted the bond on his behalf not long after he was taken into custody.



http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/WXYZ_quran-burning-pastor-terry-jones-to-arrive-in-metro-detroit-today1303519556227



Up-date:



Terry Jones was jailed briefly today in Dearborn, Michigan after refusing to pay a $1.00 bond-- and refusing to agree not to exercise his rights to free speech. It's not about the buck. You'd have to dig hard to find that in the mainstream media. Here's more, thanks to HRW at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.







Pastor seeking to protest at mosque briefly jailed



By COREY WILLIAMS

Associated Press



DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- A Florida pastor's planned demonstration outside a Michigan mosque was scuttled Friday after a jury determined the protest would constitute a breach of the peace and he was briefly jailed for refusing to pay what authorities called a "peace bond."



The Rev. Terry Jones, whose past rhetoric against Muslims has inflamed anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, said he refused to pay the $1 bond because to do so would violate his freedom of speech. He later paid it and was released.



Jones had planned a demonstration Friday evening outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit that is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the nation. An estimated 30,000 people in Dearborn, about a third of the city's population, trace their roots to the Middle East.



Prosecutors worry that someone, who knows who, might get violent against Jones if he were allowed to demonstrate against violent Islam. It's Jones' fault if Muslims get violent, so Jones goes to jail for refusing to co-operate in his banishment.







Prosecutors worried the protest would lead to violence and asked Dearborn District Judge Mark Somers to intervene. Somers conducted a one-day jury trial to determine whether Jones would pose a threat to peace. They did, and Somers then ordered Jones and an associate to post the bond to ostensibly cover the costs of police protection.



While largely symbolic, the bond also came with conditions that included a prohibition on Jones from going to the mosque or the adjacent property for three years.



Somers said he spoke to the jury after they reached their verdict and they told him they were concerned with the "time, place and manner and not the content of the speech."



That place would be America, last time I checked.





But Robert Sedler, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University, called the entire proceedings unconstitutional. He said the U.S. Supreme Court has found that it's the job of the police to protect speakers at such events and said it is unconstitutional to require protesters to post a bond for police protection.



"What basis did the state have for arguing that they would breach the peace?" Sedler said. "It's a matter of First Amendment requirement: The government can't stop a speaker from speaking because of danger from a hostile crowd."



The state law allowing a judge to require a bond "for preservation of public peace" originally dates to 1846. As recently as 1999, the state Court of Appeals upheld it as constitutional in a case involving feuding neighbors who sought peace bonds against each other.



More: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ISLAMIC_LAW_PROTEST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-22-21-43-39



And lastlly, this, also related, from The Jawa Report:
 
April 21, 2011




Islamophobes in Michigan Assert Muslims More Violent Than the Rest of Us



I am constantly being called an Islamophobe because I don't like religious law and I have the audacity to suggest that political Islam might be a causal factor in the majority of today's terrorism.



Okay, if I get this story right then:



A) Terry Jones, the Quran burning pastor is holding a protest in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with one of the highest Muslim populations in the US.



B) The city is worried that Muslims might riot in response.



C) So, the city says it will only give Jones a permit if he posts a bond to cover additional security measures.



D) Jones is refusing to pay the bond and faces jail time.



So, if I'm reading all of this right .....



Then the City of Dearborn is saying that Muslims are like children in that they can't help but rioting when they get offended? Jones is following the law and exercising his right to protest, while those he's protesting against can't be trusted to do the same?



The city is in fact asserting as a matter beyond dispute that Muslims are less responsible than other citizens.



If this is the case, then why isn't the so-called "Muslim community" being forced to pay the bond? They are the ones the city alleges will be breaking the law, so why shouldn't they be the ones paying for extra police protection?



If this is offensive, blame the city of Dearborn. It is the city that is asserting that Muslims are less capable human beings than the rest of us.



I don't think this is a case of dhimmitude, as so many are asserting. I don't think this is a case of an aspect of sharia -- thou shalt not say anything bad about our prophet or holy book -- being implemented.



I think this is a clear case of the not-so-soft bigotry of lowered expectations. In this case the assumption that Muslims just can't help themselves from being violent.



I think they're wrong. Worst case scenario is that a few crackpots and true believers yell at Jones in counter-protest and say some bad things. Or maybe send death threats via email or web posting. Which is already the case, protest or not.



In the US have we ever seen a "Muslims-get-offended-and-kill-people" type riot? No. None.



This isn't Peshewar or even the suburbs of Paris where Muslims are a majority and Islamists feel empowered enough by a community sympathetic on a certain issue that they can get away with it.



Even if Muslims might be enraged by Jones presence they understand that they are in a precarious position in this country. And as an expansionist missionary oriented religion coupled with middle class aspirations, Muslims are dreadfully afraid of looking bad. These people are smart enough to know that rioting or resorting to violence doesn't get you ahead in the US.



Certainly the next time a homegrown jihadi murders in the name of Allah, they will cite Jones as one of their causes of justification. But they will cite the Quran burning act as cause, not a protest in Dearborn.



Muslims as a group might get offended by Jones -- as well they should be by this ally of the "God hates US soldiers" Westboro Baptist Church -- but Muslims in America aren't going to riot.



It's funny, though, that those that claim to be friends of the Muslim community are the very ones who are claiming that Muslims are less able to control their impulses to violence than the rest of us.



Who are the real Islamaphobes in Michigan? If Terry Jones is one then I'd suggest his opponents outnumber him and his ilk 100 - 1.



By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at April 21, 2011 07:45 PM
Comments (20)



l digg this

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