Brotherly love, Islam style

(Correction: This entry is based on an entry at Atlas Shrugs dated yesterday, December 20, 2009. I’ve not followed the Bary close closely, and I assumed that the information in it is current. It is not. See Lydia McGrew’s correction below.)

Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teenager who converted to Christianity and fled her family in Ohio out of fear they would kill her for apostasy, is living in Florida with a foster family until her case is resolved. Yet even now her life is at risk. According to Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs, Rifqa’s older brother Rilvan, who earlier threw an object at her and caused her to lose the sight of one eye, supplied information about Rifqa’s foster family to a Muslim “stalker-blogger,” who now threatens Rifqa’s life:

I’ll tell you one thing reader … if she’s not safe in Ohio, she’s not safe in Florida. All it took was a little creative Googling and I was able to determine the likely address where she’s staying …

VFR reader NS, who sent me the item, writes:

I came across Rilvan Bary’s case in the Franklin County Court: underage drinking. I sent the information on to Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs who posted a story on it along with excerpts from his Facebook page. A commenter noted that in the court case information, it lists his race as “white.” It makes me wonder about those crime statistics and how many people who are not white are simply lumped together with whites.

I add, as always, that while everything must be done to protect Rifqa Bary from her murderous family, there are hundreds of millions of potential Rifqa Barys in the world. Various anti-jihad activists, particularly of the female variety, seem to think that we should rescue Muslim females from Islam by bringing them all to the West. But of course that would only spread the power of Islam in the West. It is not within our power to save Muslims from Islam. It is within our power to save ourselves from Islam.

- end of initial entry -

Correction by Lydia McGrew:

The incident in which Rilvan Bary released Rifqa’s address in Florida was some time ago. She has since been returned by the courts to Ohio (where in my opinion she has been scandalously treated by the Ohio children’s services department, being denied pastoral care and normal contact with Christians, for example). Her hearing in Ohio is tomorrow. A lot hangs on that hearing. The judge has wide latitude and could return her forcibly to her parents, who could then take her back to Sri Lanka.

The reason Pamela Geller is repeating the information about Rilvan’s releasing Rifqa’s address when she was in Florida is because his underage drinking charges appear to be recent. Sometimes Pamela will mix older and more recent information like that, and it can be confusing.

LA replies:

It certainly is confusing. How could one possibly tell from the article that these events were in the past and that Rifqa has been returned from Florida to Ohio? I’d like to say that I’ll remember to be more careful when reading Pamela Geller in the future, but the problem is, reading more carefully wouldn’t help, because unless one already knew the facts of the case, there is no way one could understand from reading this entry that Rifqa Bary is no longer in Florida.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 21, 2009 01:37 PM | Send