“No Reason to Believe Rifqa Wouldn’t Be Safe with Her Parents”

Phyllis Chesler’s most recent post lays bare the MSM’s refusal to accept the reality of honor killings in North America. She gives a partial list of incidents by city and date:

• Toronto (07)
  
• Dallas (08)
  
• Atlanta (08)
  
• Oak Forest, Illinois (08)
  
• Alexandria (08)
  
• Buffalo (09)
  
• Kingston, Canada (09)

and then moves on the most recent outrage in Phoenix.

Iraqi-born Faleh Hassan Almaleki is a foul killer on the lam. Just last week, he ran over his 20-year-old daughter, Noor, with a car because she was “too western.”

There is also the double killing in Dallas (in 2008, above) by Yaser Said. He’s still missing, too, and it may be that both murderers are being protected by Islamists in the U.S.

Ms. Chesler’s complaint is not only that the news coverage is spotty, it is also wrong. These are not domestic disputes:

When it comes to Islam and honor killings, political, anthropological, historical, and psychological information is rarely brought to bear on the single story. Suddenly, completely out of context, one lone individual or one lone family just up and murders their daughter or their sister. No rhyme or reason to it. Case closed.

A good case in point is the most recent one:

The local Arizona media have certainly covered this attempted honor killing and they’ve quoted experts who’ve said things as strange as the local Dallas media experts did in the Said case (It was not an honor killing, honor killings have nothing to do with Islam or with Muslims); as strange as the Florida media experts did in the case of Rifqa Bary, the teenage apostate runaway whom a Florida judge has just sent back to Ohio (She is an unbalanced, rebellious teenager who only imagines that she has been abused; she is in no danger at all).

Yes, that brings us to Rifqa Bary. She is indeed being sent back to Ohio. Ms Chesler notes:

Although the Bary case was decided narrowly, as a strictly jurisdictional decision, the local Florida media downplayed the danger that former Muslims face when they leave Islam-and the specific danger that young immigrant, often Muslim daughters face when they refuse to obey cultural and religious expectations. Hopefully, the Ohio judge will keep all this in mind.

And by the way: In custody cases (and Bary’s case is just that), judges have the discretion to listen to the wishes of minor children as young as 12. Bary is 17 years old-certainly old enough to know where danger lies.

Her mention of the case reminded me to go looking for the latest news. What I found did not reassure me.
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From the Columbia Dispatch:

Authorities aren’t saying exactly how or when Fathima Rifqa Bary is returning to Ohio.

But as of yesterday, it’s official: The 17-year-old religious runaway is to be transferred into the care of Franklin County Children Services. She will live with a foster family on her return.

It’s unclear whether the girl, who goes by Rifqa, will be at a hearing Tuesday in Franklin County Juvenile Court. The court is handling a case that will determine where she will live in Columbus.

Rifqa’s immigration status also remains unknown to the public. She is a native of Sri Lanka, and an attorney in the Florida case raised questions about whether she’s in the country legally.

Rifqa said her father threatened to kill her for her conversion from Islam to Christianity, prompting her to run away to Orlando in July.

Mohamed Bary has denied the allegations, and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found no credible threat to her safety.

Which only goes to prove that the media is not the only one with blinders on. The FDLE investigation was a farce.

The Center for Security Policy consulted with John D. Guandol, asking him to examine the investigator’s report. Guandol has more than twelve years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in his estimation, the FDLE rated an F.

The New English Review’s Jerry Gordon, who has been following the Bary case, has a good summary of Guandol’s findings:

This is a statement of facts regarding this matter:

• There are requirements in Islamic Law regarding someone who deserts Islam.
  
• The Muslim Brotherhood’s objective is the implementation of Islamic Law in the United States.
  
• Rifqa Bary has left Islam and become a Christian.
  
• Rifqa Bary has made statements to FDLE officials and others that her parents have threatened to kill her because she has left Islam.
  
• The Barys appear to be adherent to Islamic Law.
  
• The Barys appear at an interview with two Muslim Brotherhood representatives doing business as CAIR, a group known to be hostile towards the United States which is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history.
  
• The Muslim Brotherhood supports the killing of Muslims who publicly leave Islam.

It is my professional opinion that sufficient Probable Cause exists to believe that Ms Bary’s concerns for her personal safety are based in a realistic and factual understanding of her situation, and, therefore, a further criminal investigation is warranted.

The MSM continued to wear blinders about this case. I was surprised at the time, when I read Newsweek’s naive statement in their coverage of the case:

Muslim scholars say that “in Islam, there’s no such thing as an honor killing for apostasy.”

Anyone familiar with the methods of taqiyya could see right through the careful wording. Honor killings are carried out by families against members who shame them. But the killing of an apostate by others has nothing to do with restoring “honor”. It is simply what devout Islamists do to those who leave. Thus those “Muslim scholars” could lie with a straight face.

Newsweek, blind and deaf, carried on its own anti-Rifqa Bary campaign in that story. Extremist Christians bad, poor Muslims picked on by evil fundamentalists.

Ms. Chesler made this point previously in an interview in September, when she pointed out the equation of honor killings with domestic violence:

“When a husband murders a wife or daughter in the United States and Canada, too often law enforcement chalks the matter up to domestic violence,” Chesler says.

But domestic violence cases bear little resemblance to Muslim honor killings, which tend to be premeditated and involve several family members of the victim, usually a young girl or woman.

Young Muslim women are murdered by family members for a variety of reasons, Chesler explains in a recent essay in the Middle East Quarterly - anything from having a non-Muslim boyfriend to leaving Islam.

“The frequent argument made by Muslim advocacy organizations that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam and that it is discriminatory to differentiate between honor killings and domestic violence is wrong,” Chesler says.

It’s bad enough when they don’t differentiate, but what is to be done when those in charge endanger the lives they are supposed to protect? Judge Dawson has sent Rifqa back to Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch says she will be in foster care. But the head of the Ohio county's Children's Services seems to say the opposite:

The Florida Department of Children and Families, which has had custody of Rifqa since August, would not release details about her trip back to Ohio for safety reasons. The state of Florida will pay for the trip.

Eric Fenner, executive director of Franklin County Children Services, would not comment because of a gag order. He has said he has no reason to believe Rifqa wouldn’t be safe with her parents.

As a former foster care supervisor, I don’t understand why Mr. Fenner hasn’t been slapped with a contempt of court citation for breaking the gag order to begin with. Just in giving his opinion that he has “no reason to believe Rifqa wouldn’t be safe with her parents” he violated the judge’s order.

What is even more alarming is that he believes this. No young woman of her age, having alleged the abuse she claims, should ever be returned to her home. She is too old not to have her word carry equal weight with that of her family. Any competent social worker would place her in a group home to start catching up on her school work and beginning an intensive program of Life Skills Training to prepare her for being on her own when she turns eighteen.

In Rifqa’s case, that’s about ten months away. It is the worst kind of case work practice to return a young woman at her stage of life to her home in these questionable circumstances.

My guess is that Ohio doesn’t want the expense of her care, either. I sure do hope the Judge and guardian ad litem are looking out for her. It’s obvious that Social Services isn’t.