CAIR Pressures Library to Drop Revealing Exhibit

CAIR up to their typical nefarious tactics:

SAN DIEGO — An Islamic advocacy group is protesting the San Diego Public Library's hosting of a presentation on Islam, saying the event is tied to an extremist group.

“Radical Islam: Its Components and Root Causes” is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the downtown Central Library.

Michael Hayutin, local director of ACT! for America, will “give a slide presentation/lecture on radical Islam and describe the threat some Americans feel that it represents,” said a news release from the library.

“It's not coincidental that stoning, honor killing, suicide bombing, prosecution of women and gays is largely coming from one sector,” Hayutin said. “The reality is it's Islamic culture around the world that's producing those terrible things.”

The San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations sent a letter yesterday to library director Deborah Barrow asking that the library drop its sponsorship of the talk so “that local taxpayers are not made unwittingly complicit in the promotion of hatred and bigotry.”

The Islamic group is not asking for the event to be canceled; it wants the library to stop publicizing it under its letterhead. The council also is proposing that the library invite a local Muslim leader to offer a “mainstream perspective” at the event.

In a letter, Edgar Hopida, director of public relations for the local chapter of the Islamic group, cited statements attributed to Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT!. Gabriel reportedly told , “Every practicing Muslim is radical Muslim.”

Hayutin and Kelly Cook, national field director for ACT!, said their organization's goal is to give a different perspective of Islam, which Cook said has been a “very violent geopolitical movement” throughout history.

Hayutin said he asked the library to sponsor his presentation after he attended a July 11 presentation by Hopida, “Islamophobia: Its Components, Root Causes and Remedies.”

During his talk, Hopida blamed ACT! for perpetuating Islamophobia. By his own account, he also warned the audience that books by ACT! founder Gabriel are biased.
Gabriel is the author of “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America” and “They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It.” Gabriel, who immigrated to the United States in 1989, grew up as a Christian in Lebanon, where her home was bombed and she was injured during the Lebanese civil war.

In a statement, Gabriel said the Islamic council's criticism of ACT! has no merit given that it was an unindicted co-conspirator in a trial involving an Islamic charity called the Holy Land Foundation. In 2008, the foundation and five of its former organizers were convicted of illegally funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The Islamic council said it does not condone terrorism.

The Public Library is standing by its sponsorship. Barrow, the library director, released this statement:

“The library hosts a wide variety of programs encompassing many different viewpoints and sometimes those programs are controversial, but we are not promoting any particular point of view.

“We are simply informing the community.”

Source: Chris Slick-ACT for America