Free Republic

What gorgeous freedom looks like. Rifqa made it. She's free. The case of Rifqa Bary resonated nationally at a time of tense Muslim-Christian relations. One of Rifqa's primary supporters is a blogger who a year later led a campaign against the development of an Islamic center in New York City near ground zero. AP [Christian should come before Muslim, just sayin'] And they can't bring themselves to write my name -- bloody cowards.Despite intense pressure from the Islamic supremacist machine, charges will not be filed against those righteous souls who helped Rifqa Bary escape her devout Muslim household after...

A Florida attorney says the misconduct complaint filed against him is a frivolous motion from a disgruntled opposing lawyer for his legal representation of a Christian who converted from Islam. The complaint was filed by The Florida Bar on behalf of Columbus attorney Omar Tarazi as he alleges that John Stemberger, who represented Rifqa Bary after she ran away from Ohio to Florida in 2009 because she feared persecution from her family, appeared on TV as the girl's attorney after he stopped representing her. Tarazi had represented the teenage girl's parents as they hoped to return Bary to their custody,...

Orlando, Fla., Sep 14, 2010 / 06:07 am (CNA).- A hacker has attacked the website of the Florida Family Policy Council (FFPC), a group assisting the Christian convert Rifqa Bary. The hacker said he made the attack because of the group’s thinking about “Great Islam.” The loss of the website could have consequences for the 2010 election in Florida, the group claimed. In an e-mail to supporters the FFPC said the hacker gained access to its website last Friday and “disabled the entire back-end controls on the site, erased most of the data, disabled the blog and left an obscene...

There is more fall-out from the Rifqa Bary case. Rifqa is the young girl who converted to Christianity and fled her home in Ohio on the grounds that she feared for her safety due to her parents’ Islamic views. Just weeks ago Rifqa turned 18, and we saw a great victory when her freedom and status were secured as a “Permanent Legal Resident” in the U.S. Now comes word from one of her lawyers: “Last Monday, the lawyer who represented Rifqa’s parents in Ohio – who claims to be a “Muslim scholar” – filed a $10 million lawsuit against me...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A lawyer for a runaway Christian convert from Ohio who was also an illegal immigrant says the 18-year-old woman has gained permanent residency in the United States. Kort Gatterdam, a lawyer for Rifqa Bary, said Tuesday the news means Bary can now start applying for a driver's license, Medicaid coverage and college scholarships. Gatterdam says Bary, a native of Sri Lanka, received her permanent residency card last week and can apply for citizenship in five years.

Rifqa Bary, the teenage girl who fled to Florida from her Ohio home in fear for her life after her Muslim parents discovered her conversion to Christianity, has just turned eighteen. Her life is now hers, and her Florida and Ohio lawyers have embarked upon an unseemly victory dance to spin their appalling and failed legal strategy. I have stood silently by watching this, but now they are spinning their failure into a fundraising circus and smearing me and my colleagues, and that cannot stand.  Now that Rifqa has turned eighteen, one of her lawyers, Kort Gatterdam, has done an...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A runaway Christian teenager estranged from her Muslim parents has been released from state custody by an Ohio judge on her 18th birthday. Attorneys for Rifqa Bary (RIF'-kuh BAY'-ree) said Tuesday their client is relieved but won't discuss her immediate future or the status of her attempt to stay in the U.S.

Today is Rifqa Bary's 18th birthday! She is now Healed and Free!!! Thank you, Lord!

Rifqa Bary will not be forced to undergo chemotherapy for uterine cancer. The Christian convert's parents were trying to compel Rifqa, who will be 18 in a week, to follow her doctor's recommendation: 45 weeks of chemotherapy. A doctor said Rifqa is disease-free, according to "available imaging techniques," her attorney, Kort Gatterdam, said today in Franklin County Juvenile Court. He assured Magistrate Mary Goodrich that Rifqa will continue to consult her doctors but has chosen against chemotherapy. She has had surgery for her cancer. "She is mature enough to make the decision's she made," he said. Gatterdam also took exception...

Christian convert Rifqa Bary is refusing chemotherapy for cancer because she believes that she was cured at a faith-healing event, according to a motion in Franklin County Juvenile Court. Rifqa was to undergo a year of chemotherapy after her cancer was surgically removed, the document filed by her parents states. But Rifqa, who is in foster care, was taken to a faith-healing event in Youngstown a couple of weeks ago by Franklin County Children Services, without her parents' consent, according to the document. A motion to force treatment is to be considered today in Juvenile Court.Rifqa's attorneys, meanwhile, are asking...

Finally some sweet, happy news to report on Rifqa Bary, the besieged Christian convert out of Islam who was dogged and hounded for her apostasy. The straight-A student graduated with honors. She turns 18 in August, still without the immigration status that her lawyers have been promising her for months, but her life will be her own and we will continue to pray for her health.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A lawyer has pleaded not guilty to charges she illegally disclosed confidential information regarding a teenage girl who converted to Christianity and ran away from her Ohio home. Attorney Angela Lloyd entered the pleas Tuesday in Franklin County juvenile court after a magistrate approved bringing two misdemeanor charges. Lloyd is accused of placing confidential child welfare reports into the public file of 17-year-old client Rifqa Bary (RIHF'-kuh BAYR'-ee), making them accessible to the media.

Teen runaway Rifqa Bary now fighting cancer Christian convert Fathima Rifqa Bary made headlines last year when she fled Ohio and sought shelter in Orlando. Fathima Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teenager from Columbus, Ohio, who converted to Christianity and ran away to Orlando, is being treated for uterine cancer. Rifqa, now 17, has already undergone two operations and will have a third one on Thursday, according to a close friend and her former Orlando lawyer. "The only reason she wants this to be known is she wants people to pray for her," said John Stemberger, who represented Rifqa in her...

There has been a terrible development in the case of Rifqa Bary. According to Rifqa, she has been diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer I ask all Atlas readers to put Rifqa in their prayers. While this is a tragedy, how she is being victimized by her lawyers and her parents is an atrocity. Her lawyers kept her in the dark about her condition – cancer – for well over a week, while they conferred with her parents and their CAIR appointed lawyers about her treatment. While most cases like this result in a hysterectomy, she is only having the advanced...

The teen convert to Christianity who ran away from her Muslim family last summer is fighting to stay in the United States. An attorney for Rifqa Bary asked an Ohio judge Monday to declare that the girl is unable to reunite with her parents by her 18th birthday. The order would allow Bary to apply for immigration status and avoid possible deportation to her homeland, Sri Lanka. Though there is no move to deport Bary at the moment, her attorney, Angela Lloyd, said reconciliation is unlikely to happen by her client’s 18th birthday, which is Aug. 10. Lloyd said obtaining...

[From Stemberger's Facebook] Folks I do not know how to say this more kindly but Jamal Javanjee and Pamela Geller are not trusted or accurate sources of information on Rifqa Bary and her case. They also do not represent Rifqa or her views and neither one of them are Rifqa Bary spokespersons. Rifqa is in the hands of some of the best legal counsel available.

[from end of post] I have said this before and I will say it again. This case is entirely spiritual in nature. I am convinced that Rifqa’s own legal team’s blindness regarding the threat that Rifqa faces, as well as their legal blunders, are endangering her life as much as the Muslim CAIR attorneys are. Rifqa herself will have to be the one to take charge over her own defense if anything will change. She is the only one with authority to do anything. I ask all who read this to set aside time to fast and pray for Rifqa....

Basically they [the family] all are here illegally, Rifqa is applying for special emigration status to prevent her from being deported to Sri Lanka where she does not feel safe. Her parents are trying to block her application so she will be returned to their control. ... Rifqa is seventeen, why this girl has not been granted emancipation is beyond me. In Texas and several other states she is of age. She could marry and or make her own decisions. But in Ohio it's strictly 18 to become of age. One can only hope that she can make it to...

The passage of the recent health care bill by the U.S. federal government was a significant piece of legislation that will go down in history as a tipping point in the life of this nation. This bill was almost 50 years in the making, and the process of getting it passed was no small feat. I feel compelled to share with you some of my thoughts about what has occurred, and some possible ways that the church of Jesus Christ in America may be able to respond to this legislation. I am convinced that the church needs to be informed...

...as the pills I took began to take effect, a strangely wonderful thing happened. I felt as if I was falling, and there was a great chasm beneath me, waiting to swallow me whole. All of a sudden I had a blinding flash of light break through the blackness, and I had a vision... There He was, the Lamb of God, Jesus. And His eyes were filled with infinite sorrow and compassion as He looked at me. He held out His hands, and His palms were bleeding...