Friday, September 24, 2010

Praise God for the Bittersweet Victory in Dearborn

*****Click here for a complete summary of our experience in Dearborn.*****

Flags were at half-mast in Dearborn today when four out of five charges against the Dearborn Four were dropped. Defendants Qureshi, Wood, Rezkalla and Mayel were all found not guilty of their "Breach of Peace" charges, but defendant Mayel was found guilty of the charge "Willfully Disobeying the Lawful Order of a Police Officer." She was sentenced to one day of jail, which had already been served in June. The credit was applied, and all four were free to go. The judge sent them on their way saying "You are welcome in Dearborn." Clearly.

Even though the person who complained against Negeen, Roger Williams, was effectively shown to be a compulsive liar, and even though the police officer who arrested her admitted that she had done nothing illegal before he detained her for questioning, she was still found guilty. Is there no justice in Dearborn?

The trial process has been tasking in many ways. We've spent a week away from work, school, and our families. We've had a grueling week of preparing for court day after day, without break or diversion. And emotionally we are spent. But we've got so much to be thankful for.

First and foremost, thank you to all those who have supported and prayed for us throughout this ordeal. We saw prayers visibly answered, by God's grace. Negeen still needs your prayers, as the appeal process will be beginning shortly.

To our friends who flew to Dearborn to testify on our behalf, especially those who waited for a week in the hotel only to be told by the court that their testimony would not be allowed: we cannot thank you enough for your show of support and willingness to sacrifice for us. We only hope we can express our sincere gratitude as wonderfully as you have expressed your love.

To those who supported us financially: we could not have done it without you! When we came to Dearborn a week ago, we had hoped to be done with the trial by Wednesday. By Thursday morning, the prosecution was still not done presenting its case, and so the defense still hadn't started! Our expenditures skyrocketed because we had to unexpectedly extend our rental car, hotel rooms, and rearrange our flights. Your support has sustained us financially, and the love of Christ shines through your self-sacrificial attitudes. We cannot thank you enough!

Also, a million thanks go out to the Thomas More Law Center, without whom we would have been unable to defend ourselves from the persecution of the City of Dearborn. Robert Muise was not only our attorney and counsel, but he was fully invested in this issue with us, sharing our emotional burden and investing more time into the issue than even us. The way he approached the case, he might as well have been handcuffed and in jail with us 3 months ago. Truly our brother in Christ, we would have had to take pleas of guilty had it not been for him and his diligence.

And I guess I might as well thank the city of Dearborn. They have fueled in us a fire to see justice restored in this great nation, to expose corrupt police officers, to defend the rights of little Christian girls like Negeen Mayel, and to spread the Gospel no matter what the cost. Because of this city, the nation knows the danger of indifference to the spread of Islam, and the need for loving Christians to focus their efforts on sharing Christ with Muslims. So thank you, Dearborn, for waking up the nation.

We praise the Lord for our acquittals. We praise the Lord for Negeen's verdict of guilty; she shares the honor of falsely being found guilty with our Lord Jesus. And we praise the Lord for Negeen's anticipated appeal and acquittal. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord!

Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever! Amen.

31 comments:

GreekAsianPanda said...

Praise God Almighty!!!!!
=D

Jim Jordan said...

God is truth, and the truth will always set you free.

JesusTheOnlyWay said...

Praise to God for your acquittal's and for Negeen's upcoming acquittal I'm sure.

Confident Christianity said...

AMEN!

Haecceitas said...

What a relief. Though I knew you were not guilty, I began to have more doubts about the proper functioning of the legal system after seeing how the court case prolonged.

While I'm not a legal expert by any stretch of imagination, I have a hard time understanding how Negeen could be guilty of "willfully disobeying the lawful order of a police officer" when it was concluded that there was no basis for you to be arrested in the first place and the police officer's approaching Negeen was in all probability related to their intention to arrest you all.

Fernando said...

Amen indeed! May God, the Holy Trinity, be praised...

Anonymous said...

Praise the LORD!!!

Anonymous said...

Praise the LORD for this huge victory! Will continue to pray for Negeen during the appeal process. I have been giving updates on our podcast as we have seen them come through. Will be giving an update on The Real Issue this week as well.

Rafik Responde ao Isla said...

Praise the Lord... BUT ... that is it?
When are you going to press charges against DEARBORN police? Dearborn Mayor? Dearborn Festival? etc etc ?
Are any of these guys going to apologize publicly?
Have a great day and rest well.
We will keep praying for Nageen.

hugh watt said...

So, Negeen is found guilty. Hmm. What would Satan be up to here do you think? A young +ian convert from Islam, an ideology whose godfather used intimidation not only on his followers who stepped out-of-line, but against those who refuse(d) to bow to his alter ego Allah. Negeen should take this as a backhanded compliment from Satan, he hates those who aren't easily frightened by him.

Eph.6:10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places...16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Radical Moderate said...

Poor Nageen. She seemed like such a nice Muslim girl until she started hanging out with Christians. Good girl enticed by the bad boys from the wrong side of the tracks. Now look at her a CONVICT. :)

All joking aside, her verdict makes absolutly no sense. How can she be convicted of disobeying a police officer when the police officer had no basis for questioning or detaining her?

With that said, Dr White has a intereting blurb from a article on this fiasco where Mayor O'Reily says.

"Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. said Friday night that he respects the decision but that the missionaries were anti-Muslim bigots pulling a publicity stunt to gain attention on YouTube in order to raise money."...

" It’s really about a hatred of Muslims,” O’Reilly said. “That is what the whole heart of this is..… Their idea is that there is no place for Muslims in America. They fail to understand the Constitution.”

I don't think the Mayor of Dearborn understand the constitution.

Even if it was true that Acts17 where Bigots and Hated Muslims. It is their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to be bigots and hate Muslims.

Even if Acts17 wanted to promote themselves on Youtube to raise money. IT IS THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES AND RAISE MONEY.

It is unconstitutional to prevent ACTS 17 Apologetics from engaging in any of these Constitutionally protected activities.

It's almost as if the Mayor is saying that Nageen should be great full she wasn't TAZED. Now that would of been Youtube material.

The only thing that would of made this three ring circus complete is if there was a "low speed chase" in a white Ford Branco with David, Nabeel, Nageen, and Paul.

You can read the article that Dr White posted Here

Christie said...

Praise the Lord! You are all free from this burden now. I am do proud of you all. We will pray for the lords victory for Nageen and pray that she can be encouraged by the Lords hand.

Anonymous said...

Praise the Lord.

And I expect to see all four of back in Dearborn in 2011 at the Arabfest.

Jabari said...

Praise God!!!!!!!

Tom ta tum Tom said...

HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!

KAFIR AND PROUD!

MAY JESUS CHRIST BE PRAISED!!

Lydia McGrew said...

I've been researching a little on "failure to obey an officer's order" laws. It looks like some of them really are worded as though a policeman can come up to anyone on the street and order any act that isn't in itself unlawful, and the person has to do it. This could clearly be used to justify a form of police harassment: "Hey, you, run around in circles for me." Obviously, there's got to be some limit on the police's ability to issue arbitrary commands, but I gather this notion of "reasonable" orders isn't written into the laws and is left to be worked out in practice--often in the form of a judge's simply throwing out frivolous uses of the "failure to obey" charge. Of course, the judge didn't do that in this case, and my bet is that the jury was given the impression that they _had_ to convict Negeen because the policeman wanted her to stop filming and she didn't. If that sweeping interpretation of the law to include an arbitrary order to stop videotaping is allowed to stand, I predict that the police in future years will simply walk up and order all of you to stop filming and will then plan, if you don't leave voluntarily, to arrest on some other charge without video evidence to exonerate you.

David Jones said...

Amen, praise God!
Now will you seek church discipline for Roger Williams?

Tizita said...

Our God/Jesus is an awesome God! The gates of hell cant even stop the Gospel from being preached to the lost souls (my favorite verse). I'll be praying for my sister in Christ Nageen.

Dean said...

Fantastic news!

minoria said...

I am so happy things turned out almost as wished.I am glad to have been able to help,now you must rest and have fun.

Lydia McGrew said...

It's my non-lawyer's opinion that lawsuits should be filed against the Dearborn PD and Roger Williams now rather than making the whole issue turn on Negeen's appeal. There's a danger in that legal appeal of losing the forest for the trees. The order to her to stop videotaping was part of an overall plan to arrest her companions on false charges. The set-up is quite clear if in nothing else in the delay between her arrest and the arrest of the others, including the fact that the police told them "you're fine" during that intervening time. If they had simply been investigating Williams's complaint, they would simply have walked up to you guys--and who cares about whether Negeen was videotaping, if they had nothing to hide?--and discussed the complaint with you. Her arrest has to be seen in the overall context, and y'all should be on the offensive here rather than only on the defensive. "Policeman's orders" that are part of an overall campaign to deprive people of their civil rights have got to be challenged on that basis independently of the exact interpretation of the law about "obeying a policeman's orders." And surely there must be grounds for a civil suit against Williams, here: Defamation? Libel? Maybe something even stronger. You can't just go lying to the police about somebody and get away with it, even if the police themselves want to protect the liar from criminal charges.

Anonymous said...

Praise God! We will pray for Negeen. I cannot fathom how she could be found guilty of disobeying a *lawful* police order. She was not breaking the law, so the officer's request for her to turn off her camera had nothing at all to do with Dearborn law. He had no legal basis to arrest her, either; so how was she resisting *lawful* arrest? Just what does the word "lawful" mean in Dearborn, anyway?

Lydia McGrew said...

It appears that the phrase "lawful order" is taken sometimes in interpreting these laws to mean "an order that is not itself contrary to the law." On that interpretation, an order to stop videotaping can be a "lawful order" because it isn't against the law to stop videotaping. This is pretty problematic, though, because it means that the police can order you to do any lawful act (including arbitrary and dumb things) and also can order an innocent citizen to stop videotaping whenever they want to have no record of what they are about to do. For that reason the law needs to be limited and clarified.

John Park said...

Praise the Lord Jesus Christ, who is worthy to receive all glory and praise.

At last, we have found the present day Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

God bless and keep up your great ministry.

Nakdimon said...

I thank God for the justice on the four accounts, but how on earth did Negeen get convicted on ignoring an officer's order? An order for what? Turning a camera off? Is that even allowed for a police officer to ask?

Anonymous said...

Just a thought. The four missionaries are acquitted. For what were they acquitted for? Charges for disruption of the peace. Nabeel was the only one discoursing with his questioners. David, Paul and Negeen were doing what....Oh, shooting video. They were arrested for being disrupters of the peace? Hmm. Could it be that Negeen's other charge could be dropped due to the first charge being found not guilty? Could the officer that "arrested" her be at fault and thus we could have Negeen's slate wiped clean? We can pray that way...

Sheri Hepworth said...

Bittersweet victory. May Jesus Christ be praised.

Centurion said...

Excellent analysis Lydia. I think you are correct. Thank you for taking the time to research and post it.

Traeh said...

Boy this angers me. I want to know will the City of Dearborn have to pay costs and damages? Why should you all have to pay all that money (and those who donated to you, like the law firm and internet visitors) and all the costs for air tickets and hotels, and the arrests were shown to be lies. And this judge, in my opinion, has shown himself an absolute fool, at best. I hope he is held up to shame, though maybe he'll get some local praise as good little dhimmi. Yep, I'm angry. How dare the judge arbitrarily set Negeen up for conviction, when she did nothing but film in a free country -- I mean I thought it was free, but maybe the fool judge wants to make his own laws, and to hell with freedom. Judges like that make contempt of court very difficult to avoid. I can hardly wait till that verdict is overturned. But I want to see Dearborn pay the costs and damages. It's outrageous.

Nakdimon said...

And now sue the pants off Dearborn and use the money for even better equipment (hidden cameras???) to return next year to Dearborn.

Kate said...

I posted this story on my blog last summer and have been following it since. Praise God for the victory. But know that...it was "Victory" no matter what the courts decided. "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for Him." Phil 1:29
"Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you"
Matt. 5:11,12
My husband and I are outreach leaders in Texas.
Please contact me before the next Arab festival... and we will bring others and gladly stand with you next time brothers.
Kate Wells
www.Kate-Wells.com