Posted on 10/14/2009 3:14:46 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
ORLANDO, Fla. -- First there was Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy torn between two nations. Then there was Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman torn between two families. Now comes Rifqa Bary, the teenage runaway torn between two faiths.
If you're involved in a high-stakes custody fight, Florida, it seems, is the place to be.
Could Rifqa's father in Ohio really kill her for leaving Islam to embrace Christianity? Has the 17-year-old read too many fundamentalist Christian Web sites? Or is it all just teen dramatics?
Those are all questions swirling around the 17-year-old Ohio girl who became a Christian several years ago and sought shelter with an Orlando pastor after she feared for her life because, as she says, her father is bound by his Islamic faith to kill her.
Her parents deny the charges, and are now fighting in the courts in both states to bring Rifqa back home. The case has become a cause celebre among conservative Christian groups, Muslim activists and, of course, politicians.
Gov. Charlie Crist said "the first and only priority of my administration is the safety and well-being of this child." Marco Rubio, Crist's opponent in a GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat, also urged state leaders "to use every legal tool at their disposal to properly evaluate Rifqa's best interests."
"The case in Florida began as a television event," said Craig McCarthy, a former attorney for Rifqa's mother in Orlando. "It could have been dismissed on day one."
As courts in Orlando and Columbus, Ohio, wrestle over which state has jurisdiction, Rifqa remains in Orlando in foster care. On Tuesday, an Orlando judge ruled Rifqa should return to Ohio, although no timeline was set, and when she does return, she will remain in foster care.
The girl arrived in Orlando after connecting with the wife of an Orlando pastor on Facebook. The pastor and his wife took Rifqa in after "they realized that she was someone who really believed her life was in danger," said Mathew Staver, the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, an Orlando firm specializing in religious litigation. Staver represents the pastor and his wife, Blake and Beverly Lorenz. The teen was placed with a different foster family after the couple contacted authorities.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report found no evidence of any threat or abuse against Rifqa and said her allegations are "based on her belief or understanding of the Islamic faith and/or Islamic law and custom. (Rifqa) stated that she believes Islamic law dictates she must be put to death for her abandonment of the Islamic faith."
Her father, Mohamed Bary, denied making any such threat, according to the report, but he told investigators when he confronted Rifqa about her conversion last June he lifted a laptop to throw it but reconsidered, thinking about how much money he had invested in it.
The case has put Muslim groups on the defensive. Islam condones no such killings, said Babak Darvish, executive director of the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Darvish said the girl's parents are distraught about her behavior. They brought the family to the United States from Sri Lanka when Rifqa was a child so that she could receive better treatment for an eye injury that eventually left her blind in one eye, he said.
Darvish accused some conservative Christians and politicians of using the story to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment. "They're trying to use this case to further this extremist political, religious agenda," he said.
Lou Engle, an outspoken Kansas City, Mo., evangelist who has taken up Rifqa's case, said, "If Florida authorities release her to her parents, who she alleges threatened her for converting, we don't know what will happen to her and we should not risk it. While we hate to see any child leave the care of their parents, these conditions are unacceptable."
For some, Rifqa personifies lingering Christian-Muslim tensions more than eight years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In late September, as more than 3,500 Muslims prepared to gather for Friday prayers at the U.S. Capitol, Rifqa was featured as part of a national call-in prayer-a-thon.
Engle, who helped organize the call, referred to Rifqa as "our little sister," and during the call, Rifqa grew emotional when she was asked to pray for Muslims to embrace Christianity.
In her few public appearances, Rifqa is at times emotional, impassioned, giddy and sometimes a little incoherent. In a YouTube video during which she shares her testimony, Rifqa calls her parents "radical, radical Muslims" and says, "they can't know of my faith because if they do know the consequences are really harsh. Just the culture and the background that they come from is so hostile toward Christianity."
She explained that a classmate introduced her to Christianity, and then grows emotional as she describes the moment she became a Christian, during an altar call at church.
"The Lord completely wraps me in his arms of love, and I break down on the floor and weep," she said. "I felt nothing but love, nothing but this great radical love."
An attorney for Rifqa did not return calls seeking comment; his staff cited a court-imposed gag order. Staver said the threat against Rifqa is real and that Muslims, not Christians, have turned the story into another televised courtroom circus.
McCarthy, the Orlando attorney who formerly represented Rifqa's mother, was ambivalent about those who have taken up Rifqa's cause.
"It is not a unanimously held belief that these people are orthodox Christians," he said. "Which to me is a double tragedy for Rifqa, because if she wants to be a Christian, that's fantastic. I don't think she's necessarily being taught the faith in a healthy way."
Not sure of the laws of Florida or Ohio, but in Georgia a child can choose to live with someone else at 17 as long as that person states they are responsible for them.
If she’s stupid enough to go back to Ohio, and doesn’t find some way to run, and if her Dad kills her, the backlash against mouselims in this country will be huge.
Run, Lola, Run.
Although I'm sympathetic to Rifqa and would like to see her find foster/sanctuary in Florida, I wouldn't make too much of this. My father once threw a book at me when I was a rebellious teenager. I don't know if it's to his credit that he didn't appear to think about the book's cost in his anger. Then again, it was a library book.
All that is happened is that the Florida court has determined it does not have custody jurisdiction over a girl who is a legal resident of Ohio. The whole issue will now be adjudicated in an Ohio court.
Narrated 'Abdullah:Volume 4, Book 52, Number 260:Allah's Apostle said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims."
Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn 'Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with Allah's Punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "
And the Judge bought this crap. What an imbecile.
Will the backlash be hugh? It would be understandable if retaliation took place. Of course I could never condone violence. :) But the muslims have too often followed through on this kind of threat, and it isn’t just her father she has to fear, it’s every muslim man in the community. In fact, I doubt if she’s exactly safe anywhere. That judge should be putting her into witness protection, not sending her back to the mullah. I’m reminded of that guy in NY last year who cut his wife’s head off for being too westernized.
Reading comprehension, folks. He didn’t say he was thinking of throwing the laptop AT her, just throwing it. Perhaps because she was using it to visit social networking sites when her parents had forbidden that, and he felt the urge to smash it to keep her from using it.
This is a states’ rights case, and it’s an unConsitutional abomination that this girl wasn’t delivered to Ohio authorities within 24 hours of Florida authorities discovering her presence in Florida. Ohio police had had a nationwide alert out for her for over two weeks, and this sketchy self-employed pastor who chats up teenagers on Facebook had been harboring her at his home for 2 weeks before contacting authorities (and per some reports, he never did contact authorities, but rather authorities used her cell phone and computer records to trace her to him, and then they contacted him).
Not every teenager who claims her parents are extremist Muslims who are going to kill her for converting to Christianity, is telling the truth. This girl was on her high school cheerleading squad, displaying her bare legs and pantied crotch to crowds of horny teenage boys on a regular basis. It’s not like her parents were keeping her wrapped up in a burqa and controlling her every move.
Whatever Christian outfit went ahead and baptized her, knowing she was a minor whose parents didn’t approve, was way out of line. I can just imagine the howls on FR if some teenager whose parents were trying to raise her as an evangelical Christian, hooked up with a local Muslim group that convinced her to recite the shihadeh and thus formally become a Muslim, and then some imam a thousand miles away chatted her up on Facebook and convinced her to run away and come stay at his home. Sure, when the Florida authorities caught up with her, she’d say her parents were going to viciously beat her because they were Bible-thumping maniacs who took the Biblical instruction not to “spare the rod” very literally. But that wouldn’t be a legitimate reason for Florida authorities not to send her back to authorities in the state she came from, and let them sort out the real story.
in NY state she can be emancipated at 16
How about respect the Constitution of the United States, and send her back to authorities in the state she ran away from, and let that state's authorities sort it out? And apart from the Constitutional issue, there's certainly no reason to think that the family court and foster care system in Florida, of all places, is better able to handle this than their counterparts in Ohio.
There’s every reason for the state of OHIO to get involved in this — a minor resident of Ohio has alleged that her parents are threatening to kill her, and there’s at least enough evidence to support keeping her in foster care while an investigation of her claims is conducted, especially given her near-adult age. But there’s zero reason for Florida authorities to be involved in anything but arranging her prompt delivery to Ohio authorities.
The judge should do a bit of reading about honor killings - the father would kill her for her own good and because he loves her- figure that mind set out! But that is how tese animals think.
What if the girl refuses to go back to Ohio, what’s the constitutional thing to do ?
She’s a MINOR. Have two officers put her in the back of a squad car and hit the highway. What if she was a convert to Scientology or some Satanic cult and ran away from her Methodist parents and “refused” to go back? Send her back anyway!
Ohio courts are going to handle the case, and have already said that the girl will be placed in foster care pending resolution of the case, and that both the girl and her parents will have to undergo psychiatric evaluations. Frankly, I suspect all three of them actually need this. Unfortunately, she’s likely to turn 18 before any final resolution is reached, and not be deemed crazy enough to be kept in custody against her will, and so will run off again to crackpot Christian friends who are encouraging her Messiah complex.
I had not read about her displaying herself to guys. Before I became a Christian, I also did many unacceptable things. Being a Christian centers you and focuses you on your former bad behavior, and is an epiphany for the sinner. It's a classic conversion. Now maybe she doesn't want to do that anymore.
I've read several statements from this family. None of them make me think they are just going to sit back and not give her trouble about converting. According to another news story her father said she had no business learning about Christianity, she needed to learn her own religion.
I saw an interview of the FL pastor. He seems a temperate and correct man, and went to see a lawyer after the girl showed up on his doorstep. He certainly didn't want to be accused of kidnapping her, but had very serious concerns her fears were real.
She's hired her own lawyer and feels she needs legal representation. She's letting the court system work out the problem. From what her lawyer says, her father's mosque has some Islamist influence. I certainly wouldn't immediately put off what she says as teenage tripe. There's a history of these things happening. And I certainly wouldn't trust what the mother says. I've read too many stories where the woman returned home or whatever because the mother talked her into it, only to be murdered. It's a common scenario, using the mother to lure the child back before she is killed.
If he says he was going to throw a laptop because he was so angry with her, that is worth examining. And if FL doesn't want to force a 17 year old to to go to parents she claims want to kill her without some process, I certainly don't have a problem with that.
Since you’ve explained Florida’s position in this, it does make sense to kick the whole thing back to Ohio.
It IS going to be examined. By the OHIO courts. There has never been any discussion of sending her straight back to her parents. The decision as to whether her parents regain custody of her will be made by the Ohio courts, and given the normal pace of such proceedings and her age, it’s highly unlikely she’ll ever be sent back to them. That’s not really the end of the story, though, nor should it be. Her parents are Ohio residents, and if they have made serious threats to harm her, the Ohio courts need to deal with THEM, and that entails having Rifqa in Ohio to participate in court proceedings. This family also has a six year old son at home, and if the parents are dangerous enough to warrant legally terminating their custody of their teenage daughter, then the family still needs to be under court/CPS supervision on account of the younger child.
Honestly, I think this girl is a drama queen and is exaggerating a lot of things, and being encouraged to do so by her Christian friends. The pastor who facilitated her running away halfway across the country and then harbored her in his home for 2 weeks without notifying authorities (a crime in Florida, and probably a federal crime as well, since Ohio authorities had a nationwide alert out for her), is hardly a normal, responsible Christian pastor. Per various interviews her parents have given, it sounds quite plausible that what she really feared was that the parents would move the family back to Sri Lanka, because they were upset about their daughter’s overall rebellious behavior.
An interesting article here http://infidelsunite.typepad.com/counter_jihad/2009/09/rifqa-bary-parents-of-us-teen-convert-brace-for-tough-fight.html is based on an interview with her parents. They don’t sound like crazed Muslim extremists. They allowed their daughter to be on the cheerleading squad at a US public high school — just stepping out the front door in one of those outfits would be enough to cause the serious violent-extremist Muslims to kill their daughter on the spot, but these parents allowed her to participate in this activity in public. And an interesting aspect to this story which I haven’t seen any real focus on, is that the family moved to the US to seek treatment for an eye injury that Rifqa sustained at home in Sri Lanka. On the one hand, with the allegations she’s making now, one thinks “Was the injury the result of her father or another male family member attacking her?”. But then you stop and think that a family that would have done that, wouldn’t have picked up and moved the family to the US and sought medical treatment for the girl’s injury here.
It’s all very weird, and I don’t take the parents’ or the daughter’s statements at face value. The girl sounds a bit mentally unstable, and it’s quite possible her parents are too. But the Constitution and federal law are quite clear on how to handle a minor runaway who’s being sought by legal authorities in the state where her parents or legal guardians reside.
Why would anyone think the Ohio courts are less able to evaluate the parents affiliation with this Ohio mosque, than the Florida courts? I have no idea if these parents are fit to have custody of their daughter. They don’t seem to have practiced any extreme brand of Islam in the past, or their daughter wouldn’t have been on the cheerleading squad. But who knows, perhaps they’ve recently converted to extremist Islam, just as she seems to have converted to a far-out-of-the-mainstream brand of Christianity. Let the Ohio courts sort it out. Just because the parents are Muslims doesn’t mean the US Constitution gets tossed out and we just forget about all that pesky states’ rights stuff.
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