Hussein Wario's War against Acts 17 and Negeen Mayel

Though we have exposed numerous deceptions on the part of Hussein Wario, he continues to add to the list. Hussein claimed in his comments, repeatedly, that we broke festival rules. After numerous challenges to list the rules we broke, Hussein finally posted a long series of distortions and misrepresentations. Let's examine his claims.

Mr. Wood told Jason Smathers last week that “he was unaware of the policy preventing leafleting within five blocks and was not aware of Pastor George’s case until after he was detained for attempting to leaflet” on Sunday, June 20, 2010, two days after he was arrested. Jason is really good at investigating but I am surprised that he did not catch that Mr. Wood contradicts himself from what he said a few hours before he was arrested on Friday, June 18, 2010. Here is the video at 6:00-6:12 mark. Acts 17 Enters the Dearborn Arab Festival (PART ONE), “If you are a Christian here, if you want to walk up in so much as to give a pamphlet to someone who disagrees with you, to a Muslim, you will be arrested and forced to leave this public street.”

Also, on Saturday, June 19, the day after their arrest, Dr. Nabeel Qureish said, they did “not handout pamphlets whatsoever.” Why? They would have risked arrest. This shows they knew the festival rules were clear. People (Christians, Muslims and other non-Muslims) were required to handout literature from a booth. No exception. These guys knew the rules of the festival before hand and they went leafleting anyway two days after their arrest, looking for trouble. It is very sad how Mr. Wood deceives his audience. I am shocked that even Jason the investigator has been duped! How could Mr. Wood claim last week he did not know the rules last week? Here is their video, “Arab Festival 2010: Arrested for Being Christian Preachers in Dearborn,” Watch from 2:49 minute mark.

Mr. Wood’s story is changing. He said in response to a comment on my blog, “It still amazes me that people have to make things up in order to attack us. When did we say that no evangelism was allowed in Dearborn? When did we say that no one was free to distribute Bibles in Dearborn? This is sheer deception on the part of our critics.” He says in the above-mentioned video they would be arrested for distributing Bibles in Dearborn. Do his claims—given at various places and times—comport with the video from the first day of the festival? Absolutely not!

Two things are clear so far. Acts 17 Apologetics knew the rules of the festival. The initial video recorded when they entering the festival proves it. Their critics have not been changing their version of their story; Acts 17 has.

This is just sad. As we have repeatedly stated, we were aware of the fact that distributing materials inside the festival (without purchasing a booth) was against the rules. We didn't know that it was also against the rules to distribute materials outside of the festival (strange rule, considering it was a public sidewalk). We have always been crystal clear on this. But Hussein posts our claim that we didn't know we couldn't distribute materials outside of the festival, and in order to demonstrate a contradiction, he quotes us admitting we knew that we weren't allowed to distribute materials inside the festival!

Hussein must think that his readers are stupid. This was the same tactic employed in the video he used against us. In that video, someone took our claim that there was no crowd around us when Negeen was arrested, and then showed a clip of a crowd around us fifteen minutes later, pretending that the two incidents were the same. This is an obvious pattern of deception on Hussein's part.

But it gets worse. The most appalling thing about Hussein's attacks has been his emphasis on attacking Negeen. I'm not sure why Hussein would target an 18-year-old convert to Christianity (unless he's embarrassed by the fact that she's a bolder witness than he is), but he has escalated his condemnation of our sister. He writes:

Negeen’s Arrest: I pointed out a video yesterday that shows that Mr. Wood has been misleading the public about what transpired before Negeen’s arrest. She wasn’t arrested as soon as the police stopped her. In fact, the other arrests could have been avoided had she complied. The police would have investigated the “criminal complaint” and left them alone. Read the police report for yourself. Mr. Wood wasn’t pleased with my observation because I was pointing to a video, which another Christian had put together from Acts 17 Apologetics footage showing events leading to the arrest. He was incensed and unleashed his followers on me. Here is the video.

Mr. Wood and his followers were upset that I was unconcerned of Negeen’s arrest. I am very concerned. However, if her behavior toward the police officer does not disturb you as a Christian, you have a problem understanding “submission to authority.” Mr. Wood even quotes two states’ laws on Acts 17 Apologetics web page justifying Negeen’s resisting arrest:

“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his or her liberty has the same right to use force in defending him or herself as he or she would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).

“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).

some guy named Paul tried to challenge how Mr. Wood quoted Maine and North Carolina state laws to argue a criminal case in Michigan. He has essentially been debunked but he can’t accept it. Here is his response, “Nice try Paul. The point is that everyone is attacking Negeen (including you, it seems), because she questioned the officer’s order. But he had no right to tell her to stop filming, and he had no right to put his hand on her. Are you saying that the Constitution suddenly changes in Michigan, and that police can illegally seize property, and illegally put their hands on a young girl who hasn’t done anything wrong? I hope you never get to make laws in our country! It would be a very different place if people lose their rights!” He has not shown that it is legal in Michigan to resist arrest. Then why does he still have these laws on his website to justify her resisting arrest? Mr. Wood is evasive.

Was Negeen proud of her bravery? Absolutely not! She was embarrassed and apologized to the police for her actions. The police report, “[Negeen] Mayel finally became cooperative and stated that she told by Qureshi, Wood and Rezkalla to “continue filming no matter what”. She further stated that she had nothing to do with the incident with Williams… she repeatedly apologized for her actions and stated she was only doing what she was told to do.” Page 11.” I am proud of Negeen for apologizing for her dismissal attitude toward the police. How sad that she was misled into resisting arrest because Mr. Wood et al wanted footage! Who would save her from being manipulated!

If there was any doubt about Hussein's complete lack of integrity, it should be gone by now. Hussein again accuses me of being misleading in our video of Negeen's arrest, despite the fact that I corrected every one of his deceptions! How can he continue to accuse us of misleading viewers WHEN WE POSTED VIDEO FOOTAGE OF EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED??? Welcome to Wario World, my friends.

Hussein goes so far as to blame Negeen for all of our arrests! This is simply disgusting! The blame should be placed on police, who are bending over backwards to please Muslims. But Hussein puts the blame for all of the arrests squarely on the shoulders of a 4'11 Afghani convert!

Hussein really seems to think that "submission to authority" means that Christians don't stand up for our rights. Notice that Hussein hasn't merely condemned Negeen with his unbiblical claim. He has also condemned the Apostle Paul, who, like Negeen, stood up for his civil rights. (Hussein can't pretend he's ignorant of Paul's stand, since I've already posted the proof.) The fact is that police had no legal right to order Negeen to stop recording, as they had no legal right to put their hands on her. Police are sworn to protect our Constitutional rights, and these officers didn't. Police can't walk up to you and say, "Take off all your clothes," or "Hey, give me all your money." Why? Because we have rights. And among those rights are the right to record in public and the right not to be assaulted by police.

This is why it's so shocking that Hussein is siding with the police. Perhaps Hussein's Muslim background leads him to believe that it's okay to assault a woman who doesn't immediately obey a man. Hussein's thinking may be so clouded that he can't even fathom a girl telling a man to get his hands off her. This may be why Hussein has sided with the men against the "rebellious" Negeen. But we don't follow Islam. The Constitution protects Negeen against those who would violate her rights, no matter how much Hussein favors the violators.

Hussein also draws attention to the fact that Negeen apologized. Did it ever occur to Hussein to ask her why she apologized? She apologized because the police officer told her that she had to obey his orders, and that he could take her to jail for disobeying his orders. Since he convinced her that she had broken the law, she apologized. Later, Negeen learned that she was absolutely correct when she refused to stop recording, and when she told the officer to quit touching her. Police lied to her. She did nothing wrong, which is why she isn't sorry.

Notice that Hussein also contradicts himself. He says that we tricked Negeen into resisting arrest. But he begins his comments on Negeen by saying that the officers didn't come to arrest her! So how was she resisting arrest, when she wasn't under arrest? It should also be noted that Negeen wasn't charged with resisting arrest. This is a libelous invention of Hussein. She was charged with disobeying a lawful order of a police officer. (Too bad for the police and Hussein that the order turned out to be unlawful!)

But there's more.

Mr. Wood’s deception went nationwide. Fox News picked up the story. Mr. Wood and his lawyer appeared on the program. The host talked about how the four were arrested that day in Dearborn. Fox News host even said Christians were “arrested for handing out copies of the Gospel of John.” Neither Mr. Wood nor his lawyer refuted that false statement about the alleged arrest. I doubt they told the host that the footage was taped two days after the arrests. What did Fox News do with the video? It is no longer available on Fox News website. I wonder if they know what some of us know.

Let's watch the actual video:



Notice that Robert and I did correct the misunderstanding, by pointing out that we were arrested while one of us (Nabeel) was having a dialogue, and the other three were recording (obviously a different event from the one they reported). If this wasn't enough, I told the host immediately after the show that viewers might get the wrong idea because of his words, and he said that he would try to get us back on the show to correct the misunderstanding. (Unfortunately, it didn't happen.) I also immediately commented on this error here on my blog. Beyond this, we posted an entire timeline so that people would know the correct series of events. Yet none of this is enough for someone who desperately wants to attack his fellow Christians.

Kelly Boggs of the Baptist Press lambasted the City of Dearborn after the arrest. He was misled and believed the same story Fox News disseminated. He investigated the matter and later apologized for his error. He wrote in his apology, “The Baptist State Convention of Michigan also distributed materials during the festival. “Our teams had a strong presence and had no issues at all,” wrote Carlos Liese, language ministry leader with the Michigan convention, in an e-mail. “Our volunteers had many conversations about Christ with participants, passed out 2000 ‘Jesus Film’ DVDs and 500 copies of the Gospel of John and Romans in Arabic.”” Those Baptists were actually busy doing what Acts 17 Apologetics claimed to be doing “illegally.” Drop your cameras and carry some Bibles next year!

Hmmm. We never claimed that no one was allowed to distribute materials at the festival (provided a group purchased a booth). We clearly posted all of the facts on our blog. But since someone didn't examine our posts and didn't contact us for clarification, we're responsible for the misunderstanding! Notice also that Hussein is once again distorting the facts. We told the world that we were taken into custody for trying to distribute copies of the Gospel outside the festival. This is completely true. Yet Hussein pretends that, since certain groups purchased booths inside the festival, everyone must have been free to distribute Bibles! Hussein is clearly grasping at straws now, and it's obvious that he's willing to use anything in his baseless attacks against other Christians.

Hussein continues his tirade:

Why is Acts 17 Apologetics misleading the public? Why does Dr. White still support them? Iron Sharpens Iron hosts said Acts 17 “ministry comes very highly recommended by frequent “Iron Sharpens Iron” guest, renowned Christian apologist and biblical scholar Dr. James R. White of Alpha & Omega Ministries.” At 15:00-17:00, Mr. Wood said, “Astonishingly, they didn’t erase all the footage, so we started posting the footage immediately and all the people who were criticizing and condemning us have been shockingly silent.”

And why would Mr. Wood lie on Iron Sharpens Iron about the police and their video footage and also Christians who disagree with his contradictory statements?

Where's the misrepresentation here? Where's the lie? When did we lie about police? Are we guilty by association simply because we're friends with Dr. James White, the man Hussein hates most on this planet?

Now for a display of the near infinite value of video footage:

More of Mr. Wood’s deception: He still claims that he had permission to tape Muslims in 2009. Here is one case, just as he entered the festival this year. In a video “Acts 17 Enters the Dearborn Arab Festival (PART ONE)”. At minute 0:50-1:09, Mr. David Wood says, “Muslims at the booth gave us permission twice” to tape.

Here is a video that exposes how Mr. Wood is misleading the public.

Acts 17 Apologetics did not have permission to record conversations and they were also harassing people last year. Why would Mr. Wood lie? Watch it for yourself here.

Once again, Hussein links to a deceptive video. Perhaps he should be a bit more careful when launching an attack against fellow Christians. Take a look at Hussein's video:



Now watch what the video left out:



Did you catch what our critic just did? We posted a video, showing footage of Muslims at the booth saying we could record. Our critic then posted part of the video, and stopped just before Muslims gave us permission to record. Then he added footage from a later episode, after security had assaulted Mary Jo. At that point, we refused to turn our cameras off, and a Muslim grabbed the front of the camera. But again, this was later, after security broke up our peaceful dialogue and assaulted Mary Jo. Then the critic goes to another clip, where I recorded one of the Muslims who assaulted Mary Jo. But we never claimed that we had permission of security to record them after they assaulted Mary Jo. We said (1) we were invited to ask questions (just read the sign at the booth!), and (2) we had permission of the Muslims at the booth to record our question and the resulting dialogue. But Hussein's deceptive video cuts out the part where Muslims gave us permission, and adds other occasions when security had already started assaulting us! This is exactly what Hussein's other video did! And we're the ones who are being deceptive???

Well, there you have it. That's Hussein's case against us. At what point does Hussein rely on actual evidence rather than on outright deception? Never.

Sadly, some Christians think that, by attacking other ministries, they will make a name for themselves. But Hussein is simply embarrassing himself. No Western Christian is going to tolerate unprovoked attacks on a teenage girl. Hussein is rapidly destroying what little credibility he had.

I again invite our readers to thoroughly expose Hussein Wario (leaving comments on his blog would be a good place to start). There is no place in Christian ministry for someone who thinks it's his job to lie about fellow Christians. Hussein should be miles away from ministry, studying the scripture and learning what it means to be a Christian.

Hussein's constant lies also call his past into question. I was contacted by someone who says that he can disprove Hussein's claims about his past, but that Hussein keeps blocking the comments. Perhaps the comments section here would be a good place to post such information. (Please make sure the information is accurate, however. Even though Hussein is willing to engage in deception in his war against Christians, we must not do so in return.)