Intrepid Florida blogger Tampa Pirate attended the Department of Justice “First Freedom” presentation held April 25 in Tampa, Florida. Also at the seminar: Ahmed Bedier, the Communication Director for CAIR - Florida . Tampa Pirate just filed an in-depth report:

The DOJ held a Religious Freedom Seminar today here in Tampa and I was lucky to be able to attend. It was also attended by lawyers, pastors, concerned citizens, CAIR-FL and a representative from the Islamic Society of Tampa. The topics discussed were:

Religious Discrimination in Education

Religious Discrimination in Employment

Religious Discrimination of Institutionalized Persons

Religious Discrimination in Land Use, Housing and Equal Credit Opportunity

Criminal Statutes Protecting Individuals From Religious Hate Crimes and Interference With Religious Exercise.

Reporting of Hate Crimes

The speakers were excellent, and went along way towards explaining some of the ambiquous statutes that are out there. After the first four topics there was a Q&A held with the presenters for each catagory and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Mosakowski, Chief, Tampa Division, Middle District of Florida. The two main representatives from CAIR were Ahmed Bedier, the Communication Director for CAIR - Florida and Ramsay Kilic also from CAIR-FL. There was also a female with them, but I didn’t get her name. Mr. Bedier’s question was addressing some statement made by John Ashcroft when he was Attorney General about Muslims, and statements by President Bush where he described our enemies as Islamo-Fascist. Concerning the statements by Mr. Ashcroft he did not say which one exactly, but I believe it is the one he made while being interviewed by Cal Thomas in which he said,

“Islam is a religion in which Allah demands you send your son to die for him; Christianity is the faith in which God sent his son to die for you”

You can see why Mr. Bedier did this, to try and establish a Muslim bias in the government. Mr. Mosakowski however pointed out that the comment made by Mr. Ashcroft was taken out of context as is apparent by Mr. Ashcroft’s standing orders to all U.S. Attorneys to be diligent in their handling of crimes against Muslims. Mr. Mosakowski also pointed out that current Attorney General, as well as Mr. Mosakowski’s, boss has also demanded the same. No further question was asked.

After the Q&A and a short break we started the last two section. The presenter was Mark Kappelhoff, Chief Criminal Section USDOJ Civil Rights Division, who has dealt with some very difficult cases of civil rights vioilations. However during the presentation he cited a few cases of civil rights violations and those were white skinhead on Jew and whites on Muslims. He also spent a lot of time discussing the sensitivity in the DOJ to Muslims and retaliation against Muslims post 9/11.

During the Q&A after the final two sections I pointed out to Mr. Kapplehoff that since 9/11, 31 non-Muslims have been killed and 25 injured by Muslims on U.S. soil. The victims were mainly Christians and a couple of Jews and they were killed by Muslim snipers primarily yet none of these cases gets any media attention with the exception of the Virginia sniper attacks. I cited numerous cases, and pointed out that many times crimes against white Christians are not viewed as hate crimes. He confirmed that hate crimes can be committed against any race and any religion.

Mr. Bedier brought up the problem with hate crimes against Muslims and inflammatory comments against Muslims and Islam, and what can be done about them. Mr. Knapplehoff replied that hate crimes are viewed as serious to the DOJ, but that statements made may be offensive to some, but do not constitute hate crimes. A few minutes later Mr. Kilic asked a follow up question concerning hate speech, and he spoke about local area blogs and in particular Right-Wing Howler’s site that was shutdown after CAIR went after HostGator because of a tongue-in-cheek comment that was a repost made on the site. You can read about the story HERE.

Mr. Kapplehoff explained that he was familiar with the case, and this does not fall under hate speech or hate crimes statutes. In order for a comment to be defined as hate speech it has to pass the following litmus test:

A) The threat has to be directed at an individual or a corporation, and must be truly ominous in nature.
B) It has to be a true threat, not just a veiled threat.

He gave as an example of a real crime as this, “If someone sent an e-mail stating they were heading to that persons house to kill them.”

He also went on to say that discourse is what makes the U.S. the greatest country on Earth and it is part of our fabric. He also said that he has no intention to become the “thought police.”

After the event ended I had the opportunity to spend 5 or so minutes with Ramsey and the female who was with him. We started talking about the Right Wing Howler situation, and that the intent of the post was to be tongue in cheek. I also told him that, like Mr. Kapplehoff said, discourse is part of the fabric of our country and if a person wants to be a part of it, than they have to understand and change their thought process. He seemed to disagree by saying that speech like that can cause extremist to carry out those actions, and I compared those to what is said in Mosques every Friday.

On the other hand the female who was with them brought up the horrible incident here in Tampa where a Islamic learning center in the Town-n-Country area was firebombed. I said that I agreed that was a horrible incident. She said she was impressed at the outpouring support from the neighbors in the area and the local Christian churches. I explained that this is how this is supposed to work. If both sides can put the differences behind us we can all learn to co-exist. She agreed, and we all parted ways.

Unlike many at CAIR, I know that there are good people and bad people. Guys like Mr. Bedier have a history of saying and doing bad things. He supported Sami Al-Arian, and he has said organizations like PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) were moral organizations prior to 1996 (even though they carried out terrorist attacks on innocent people). These were just two examples. He is also always preaching that Christians and others need to learn tolerance for Islam, yet he does not require the same of his own people. If he did he would be spending time trying to get the Jihadist webiste removed because that is where many Americans get their biased views. If he wants to clean-up my backyard, he needs to clean his front yard up first.

One other gentleman I met there was Dr. Mohammad Sultan who is the local Imam at the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay. He is an older gentleman who speaks very softly, but in his voice you can hear his sincerity. He has worked very hard at trying to bridge the religious divide in the Tampa Bay area. I will be talking to him further about some issues and will keep all informed.

When I meet people like that female and Dr. Sultan it helps remind me that not all Muslims are bad. They want to change the world for the better, but until the Bedier’s of the world are no longer in positions of power we will never fully be united.