With an unprecedented and unexpected turnout, freedom-lovers thronged to the Marriott Manhattan Beach AFDI/SIOA “Summer Night for Human Rights” town hall, as a standing-room-only crowd heard some of the world’s most courageous and unheralded voices for freedom speak up for the human rights of Muslim apostates and all those victimized by Sharia.
As Hamas-CAIR held its “Islamophobia” hate propaganda fest right down the street, which we understand was sparsely attended by an decidedly unenthusiastic and dutiful crowd (probably largely there on orders), our joy-filled and happy army of warriors called them out on their hypocrisy and deceit. Where is Hamas-CAIR, where is the ACLU, where are the international human rights organizations, on the rights of those who wish to leave Islam? Their silence is deafening, and monstrous. And it falls to us to speak out.
Lovers of freedom and patriots were riveted by the humble testimony of former Muslims who were finally given the platform they deserve in order to tell their stories. Speakers included world-renowned, unsung and unknown heroes who faced enormous hardship and alienation and danger. Ishmail Zarouali was stabbed multiple times and almost killed. And that was par for the course in his native “moderate” Morocco. He was saved by our AFDI/SIOA “Leaving Islam” bus ad, which he saw on a New York City street and was amazed that someone was articulating his own plight: he wanted to leave Islam, but there was a fatwa on his head, and he had nowhere to go. He found help by following up the contact info on the ad.
One after another they spoke: the moving Amani Mustafa, the erudite Ibn Warraq, the riveting Walid Shoebat, and so many others. Some were choking back tears, some inarticulate and struggling with the language but deeply compelling in their staunch commitment to the truth. Some of these ex-Muslims had never been given the opportunity to speak before. They struggled with their emotions as much as with their words, but were all the more powerful for their depth and sincerity — and they were grateful for the opportunity to finally be heard and to say the words that in any Muslim country would have gotten them killed immediately. All spoke with the same voice, all enunciated the same message, the same pressing warning to clueless and freedom-assuming Americans — Americans who are greeting the devil at the door with a welcoming martini.
An ad the media and liberals deemed to be bigoted. It’s deemed hateful to oppose a hateful ideology. That’s where the left stands.