| | | The Garland Muhammed art event was a response to "Stand With the Prophet" Muslim rally held in Garland in the same hall. Muslims held a "Stand With the Prophet" rally a mere week after the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Muslim Leaders to Hold ‘Stand with the Prophet’ Rally in Texas
Georgetown University prof, controversial Imam to attend
BY: Adam Kredo
January 12, 2015 2:25 pm
Muslim leaders from across America will gather in Texas this weekend to hold the annual Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference, a weekend forum that is being billed as a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message,” according to event information.
The Saturday event, which seeks to combat “Islamophobes in America” who have turned the Islamic Prophet Muhammad “into an object of hate,” according to organizers, comes just a week after radicalized Islamists in France killed 17 people.
The victims died in events that began with the shooting attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo for its satirical cartoons that skewered the prophet.
Organizers of the event place the blame for Islam’s bad reputation on the media and so-called American Islamophobes who have “invested at least $160 million dollars to attack our Prophet and Islam,” according to the conference web page.
Keynote speakers at the event will include Georgetown University professor John Esposito, founding director of the school’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which has come under fire for, among other things, hosting 9/11 Truthers and a member of Egypt’s Nazi Party.
Also scheduled to attend the forum is controversial New York-based Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was an “ unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings trial. Wahhaj has called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists” and expressed a desire for all Americans to become Muslim, according to the New York Post.
Organizers of the conference claim that the media and Islamophobes in America are the main reason why Islam and its prophet have such a bad reputation in the Western world.
“This is not an event. It is the beginning of a movement,” organizers write on their website, which blames Americans for giving Islam a bad name. “A movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message.”
“All these accusations were invented by Islamophobes in America,” the group claims. “As we celebrate the Prophet in our now annual, nationwide event: Stand with the Prophet, we recommit ourselves to rectify his image, peace be upon him.”
The event seeks to capitalize on outrage over cartoons and other materials mocking Mohammed in popular culture.
“Frustrated with Islamophobes defaming the Prophet?” the event materials ask. “Fuming over extremists like ISIS who give a bad name to Islam? Remember the Danish cartoons defaming the Prophet? Or the anti-Islam film, ‘Innocence of Muslims’?”
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- See more at: http://freebeacon.com/issues/muslim-leaders-to-hold-stand-with-the-prophet-rally-in-texas/#sthash.20UM1L9V.dpuf
.... Pamela Geller is planning a “Draw the Prophet” event in Garland, Texas in the same location as a Muslim group held a “Stand with the Prophet” conference in January. The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest will be hosted by the Curtis Caldwell Center, which is owned and operated by the Garland Independent School District.
Geller’s event comes on the wake of the Islamic terrorist attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. Following the attack, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) scheduled the “Stand with the Prophet” conference at the public school district’s conference center. Geller, the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), scheduled a protest outside the event that was attended by approximately 2,000 people.
During the Free Speech Rally in Garland, Geller spoke with Breitbart Texas about her reaction to the large and loud crowd of protesters. She said that Muslims are trying to impose restrictions on free speech like they are doing in Paris. “Thousands of Americans said ‘no way!’”
“The media can smear us and the President can stand with them,” Geller said. “We the people are not having it. If there is any proof of that, it’s today. We dwarfed them.”
“If the Western media ran the Danish cartoons back when this Islamic supremacist movement first started gaining steam, the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo would be alive today,” Geller stated in response to an inquiry from Breitbart Texas. “That said, the European press ran the Hebdo cartoons in the wake of that jihad slaughter. But the American press would not. The beacon of freedom, the shining light on a hill, is running scared. Well, that’s not who we are. The elites do not represent the people.”
“Enough is enough,” she explained. “They’re just cartoons. We’re holding this exhibit and cartoon contest to show how insane the world has become — with people in the free world tiptoeing in terror around supremacist thugs who actually commit murder over cartoons. If we can’t stand up for the freedom of speech, we will lose it — and with it, free society.”
The art exhibit and contest will be held at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland on May 3rd. ”This was the site of a Muslim conference denouncing ‘Islamophobia’ — an obscene stand for them to take after the Charlie Hebdo massacre – and our massive Free Speech Rally outside that event,” Geller wrote in a press release obtained by Breitbart Texas.
The contest will take submissions online and the winner will be announced at the event in Garland. The winning cartoonist will receive a $10,000 prize. The exhibit will feature images of Islam’s prophet in both historical and contemporary settings. There will also be a series of speeches by internationally renowned free-speech advocates.
Geller explained that the art exhibit is the next logical step following AFDI’s Free Speech Rally in Garland. “This event will stand for free speech and show that Americans will not be cowed by violent Islamic intimidation,” she stated. “That is a crucial stand to take as Islamic assaults on the freedom of speech, our most fundamental freedom, are growing more insistent.”
“Of course, this event will require massive security,” she assured potential attendees. “But this exhibit has to be staged. If we don’t show the jihadis that they will not frighten us into silence, the jihad against freedom will only grow more virulent.”
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http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/02/11/10000-muhammad-art-and-cartoon-contest-to-be-held-at-site-of-stand-with-the-prophet-conference-in-texas/ |
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