hamas-linked-cairs-hooper-demands-muslim-vloggers-apologize-for-hoax-video

Robert Spencer Oct 21, 2014 at 8:48pm CAIR, hate crimes 15 Comments

Oh, this is rich. Ibrahim “Honest Ibe” Hooper of Hamas-linked CAIR is enraged that Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar fabricated their video purporting to show a New York City police officer profiling Muslims. Hooper is afraid that Saleh and Akbar will give the Muslim victimhood industry a bad name: “He fears that the next time a Muslim calls in a hate crime, others will claim they were faking it.”

Not to worry, Ibrahim. Many people already suspect that Muslim hate crime claims are fake because of the deceptions and half-truths retailed by your organization. Here is an excerpt from a May 2005 article, “CAIR’s Hate Crimes Nonsense,” by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha:

CAIR cites the July 9, 2004 case of apparent arson at a Muslim-owned grocery store in Everett, Washington. But investigators quickly determined that Mirza Akram, the store’s operator, staged the arson to avoid meeting his scheduled payments and to collect on an insurance policy. Although Akram’s antics were long ago exposed as a fraud, CAIR continues to list this case as an anti-Muslim hate crime.

CAIR also states that “a Muslim-owned market was burned down in Texas” on August 6, 2004. But already a month later, the owner was arrested for having set fire to his own business. Why does CAIR include this incident in its report?

CAIR lists the March 2005 lawsuit filed by the Salmi family for the firebombing of their family van as one example of a hate crime report it received in 2004. However, the crime named in the lawsuit occurred in March 2003, was already reported by CAIR in 2003, and should not have been tabulated again in the 2004 report.

CAIR reports that “a home-made bomb exploded outside of the Champions Mosque in the Houston suburb of Spring, Texas,” staking its claim on eyewitness reports that on July 4, 2004, “two white males” were seen placing the bomb. We inquired about the incident and found that Spring’s sheriff department could not locate any police files about an explosion. Further inquiries to the mosque and an e-mail to CAIR both went unanswered. There is scant evidence that any crime even occurred.

CAIR notes that “investigators in Massachusetts are still investigating a potential hate-motivated arson against the Al-Baqi Islamic Center in Springfield.” However the case was long ago ruled a simple robbery, news that even CAIR’s own website has posted. The Associated Press reported on January 21, 2005, that prosecutors determined the fire was set by teen-age boys “who broke into the Al-Baqi mosque to steal money and candy, then set the fire to cover their tracks.” The boys, they clarified, “weren’t motivated by hatred toward Muslims.”

CAIR describes what happened to a Muslim family in Tucson, Arizona: “bullet shots pierced their home as they ate dinner in October 2004″ and two months later their truck was smashed and vandalized. But the only evidence that either incident was motivated by hate of Muslims is the Dehdashti family itself, not the police. Detective Frank Rovi of Pima County Sheriff’s Department, who handled the shooting investigation, said that according to the neighbors, the desert area by the Dehdashti house was often used for target practice. Neither incident was classified as a hate crime and both cases were closed by February 2005, long before the CAIR report went to press.

Of twenty “anti-Muslim hate crimes” in 2004 that CAIR describes, at least six are invalid – and further research could likely find problems with the other fourteen instances.
Nor is this the first unreliable CAIR report; earlier ones were just as bad. Speaking about the 1996 CAIR report, terrorism expert Steven Emerson noted in congressional testimony that “a large proportion of the complaints have been found to be fabricated, manufactured, distorted or outside standard definitions of hate crimes.” The 1996 report included the arrest of Musa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader, and the trial of Omar Abdul-Rahman, the blind sheikh and ringleader of the foiled “Day of Terror” plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

So people have known for over nine years that Hamas-linked CAIR’s claims about hate crimes against Muslims are untrustworthy. Hamas-linked CAIR is far more responsible than Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar are for people not trusting reports of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

“Muslim Vloggers Come Clean About Staged Stop-And-Frisk Video (UDPATE [sic]),” by Carol Kuruvilla, Huffington Post, October 21, 2014:

UPDATE 2: Oct. 21 – Vloggers Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar have come clean with a statement admitting that their viral video was staged:
“This video is a Dramatization of previous events that occurred with us in our tradition clothing while filming in NYC. This video is not against the NYPD, it’s just an example of what we have to go through sometimes when filming in NYC. This is to raise awareness for Racial Profiling,” the vloggers wrote.
Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s national communications director, said that the organization is demanding a straightforward apology from the pair, adding that the vloggers’ actions were “unacceptable and irresponsible,” and potentially damaging to the Muslim community. He fears that the next time a Muslim calls in a hate crime, others will claim they were faking it.
“Muslims are already under the microscope and to do this just to gain some cheap publicity is totally unacceptable,” Hooper told The Huffington Post.