In yet another Saudi propaganda event (carefully coordinated with the PBS series Crossroads), the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University and Washington Post Magazine are co-sponsoring “What it Means to be Muslim in America.” This is unabashed propaganda.

Speakers include well-known and well-paid Saudi shill John L. Esposito (Founding Director of the Prince Al etc. Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding), Salman Ahmad, Pakistani born rock musician, Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, Sherman A. Jackson, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ingrid Mattson, President of Islamic Society of North America, and Hadia Mubarak, head of the Muslim Student Association. According to their website and the full page advertisement in Sunday’s Washington Post (your petrodollars at work), “This diverse panel will look at four distinct and potentially competing definitions of Muslim identity: Islam as a moral compass, a political agenda, a spiritual journey and a culture apart.”

This is what it feels like to have our media, government and academic institutions occupied by a foreign power. You can be sure that the left, the Islamists and the media will pack this event. It has been assigned as homework to students at Georgetown University. Please attend if you can, and ask questions if possible.

You can submit a question in advance here: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/

As always, be polite but firm – and focused on the background of the speakers’ organizations, their foreign funding or their political agendas.

Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Place: Copley Hall Formal Lounge, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
For more information: http://www14.georgetown.edu/explore/calendars/events/index.cfm?Action=View&CalendarID=106&EventID=49881

Here’s an excerpt from the question I submitted:

Here’s my question: The conference, “What it means to be Muslim in America” poses an important question for Americans: why is so much Saudi funding going to a conference that is one sided, and therefore denies the presence of Saudi-funded Islamist extremism in America? Your conference is co-sponsored with the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, funded by the Saudi prince of the same name. One of your major speakers is from the Islamic Society of North America, associated with the promotion of more fundamentalist, even extremist, forms of Islam with Saudi Arabian funding, according to Matthew Levitt, “Subversion from Within: Saudi Funding of Islamic Extremist Groups Undermining U.S. Interests and the War on Terror from Within the United States,” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, September 10, 2003.

Saudi Arabia is a human trafficker, engages in gender apartheid, and funds Wahhabist mosques and organizations to aggressively radicalize moderate Muslim groups worldwide – not just in the U.S., but in Europe, Indonesia, Eastern Europe and the Asian subcontinent. Would you have had South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s sponsor a conference on “What it means to be Black in America?” and thought you weren’t being used as a propaganda front? Would you have had King George III fund a conference in 1775 on “What it means to be American in the Colonies?” and thought you weren’t being used as a propaganda front? Why have you particularly selected groups at your conference – and your conference co-sponsor at Georgetown University – who are funded by a country whose policies consistently violate all international norms for human rights and rule of law?

Most Muslims in America are assimilated, excelling in careers, business and education, and not the subject of discrimination….The Muslim experience in the U.S. is largely one of success, prosperity and achievement, like that of most other immigrant groups. Most U.S. citizens’ experiences with Muslims are also largely successful and completely ordinary. However, a few organizations – CAIR, MAS, ISNA, MSA, ADC and others – make an excellent living within the Beltway playing the victimhood scam, funded by Saudi foundations, banks and private funds.

You’re enjoying having a conference today funded by Saudi Arabia, and no doubt applauding your tolerance and religious sensitivity for addressing the alleged problems of Muslim victimhood raised by MSA and ISNA. At least have the decency to read of the real victims of the Saudi government, victims whose cries you seem determined to silence:

1. In March, According to the Saudi al-Watan newspaper, A 20 year old Saudi woman received 60 lashes for leaving an abusive home environment (http://www.indiaenews.com/middle-east/20070325/44709.htm ).

2. Human Rights Watch begged the Saudi government to halt all executions after the torture and slaughter of four Sri Lankans in February 2007. “Saudi Arabia considers armed robbery to be an offense against God with prescribed, unalterable punishment if proven, based on the Koranic verse 5:33 that criminalizes waging war against God and His Messenger and spreading corruption on earth, and prescribes either “execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land” as a punishment.” http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/02/21/saudia15377.htm

3. “In interviews with roughly 100 Saudi women academics, educators and medical professionals, Human Rights Watch documented how male guardianship of adult women denies women the right to employment, education, health, and freedom of movement. Government policy often explicitly requires male consent for a range of everyday activities. This system, premised on the idea that women have limited or no legal capacity to act on their own behalf, affects all Saudi women across economic or social divides. While guardianship is construed as a form of protection for women, in fact, it fails to protect some of their most basic rights.”

Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia confront a precarious legal situation. They can only obtain visas through their Saudi employers, who have the power to repatriate them at any time, or to prevent their return home by holding their passports and refusing to sign exit visas. Women migrant domestic workers are particularly at risk of abuse, as they are excluded from the protections of the Labor Code and redress through labor courts. Many employers place tight restrictions on their communication. The Ministry of Labor said that it is developing additional provisions covering domestic workers.

Labor abuses are pervasive in Saudi Arabia. These abuses include nonpayment of wages for months or years, long working hours with no days off, and confinement to the workplace. Human Rights Watch also documented several cases of physical abuse, sexual abuse, forced labor, and trafficking of persons. Foreign workers have little bargaining power in the labor courts because they lack financial resources and expertise for lengthy legal battles. The police and the Ministry of Social Affairs sometimes assist domestic workers to recover their wages.

Saudi authorities routinely detain children suspected of even minor offenses, including vague charges of transgressing “morals,” and such children may face solitary confinement and corporal punishment. Detained children are at risk of abuse by other inmates in the Riyadh reformatories because staff do not adequately categorize, separate, and monitor children, especially in large, poorly supervised dormitories. While children are not tried in adult courts, they may face adult sentences if a judge determines they are considered “grown-ups” (baligh), and such children, even as young as 13, have been sentenced to death.”

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/02/17/saudia15353.htm

4. “Saudi Arabia should immediately end its discrimination against its 100,000 Chadian residents, most of whom were born in the kingdom but are increasingly denied the rights to basic education and emergency healthcare, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi Arabia’s decision to target Chadian children for expulsion from school is arbitrary and discriminatory.”

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/06/saudia14128.htm

5. “In September the mabahith detained women’s rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider, forcing her to pledge to refrain from speaking to the media and to cease her human rights advocacy as a condition for release. Saudi non-judicial authorities often extract such pledges from regime critics.”

6. “Many of the estimated 8.8 million foreign workers face exploitative working conditions, including 16-hour workdays, no breaks or food and drink, and being locked in dormitories during their time off. The government promised to publish in November 2006 a special annex to the new labor law that regulates domestic migrant workers’ rights. Women domestic workers, whom the labor law currently does not protect, are often at risk of serious abuse in private homes.”

http://cdhrap.net/text/english/reports/human/human/2007.htm

7. “In March, a 19-year-old Saudi woman who was kidnapped, beaten and gang raped by seven men who then took photos of their victim and threatened to kill her, was sentenced under the country’s Islamic-based law to 90 lashes for the “crime” of being alone with a man not related to her.

http://www.wunrn.com/news/2007/03_07/03_12_07/031707_saudi.htm

8. “Since 1992 there are more than 360 cases of Christian expatriates being arrested for participating in private worship. Despite this, the Defense Minister, Prince Sultan, told reporters in March 2003 that Christians are free to worship privately, but reiterated that no church buildings will be allowed. He said, “We are not against religions at all … but there are no churches - not in the past, the present or future.” With the death of King Fahd, persecution of believers has not improved, but has been on the rise under the new King Abdullah. Typically the Saudi government deports expatriate Christians caught conducting worship meetings in their homes or privately owned villas, forcing their employers to terminate their work contracts, Christian observers say.”

http://www.persecution.net/country/saudi.htm

9. “Under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, public non-Muslim worship is prohibited, although members of the royal family insist that Christians are free to worship within their own homes. Last year five East Africans were detained for a month for leading a private Christian worship service in Riyadh as part of a major crackdown on foreign Christians.”

http://www.worthynews.com/christian/saudi-arabia-detains-east-africa-christians/

Christine Brim
Vigilant Freedom Center