2:28 p.m. EDT, September 11, 2009
Gov. Ted Strickland's office says Ohio officials can protect Fathima Rifqa Bary, who ran away from her Muslim parents to Christian evangelists in Orlando
The office of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has issued a statement, saying the teenage girl who ran away from her Muslim home in Columbus, Ohio, to evangelical Christians in Orlando, should be returned.
"Child welfare agencies and authorities in Ohio and Franklin County are fully capable of providing for the security and well-being of Ohio's children," said the statement. "The governor believes this is a family matter and therefore would most appropriately be handled here in Ohio with the assistance of the child welfare and foster care system."
Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, is currently living with a foster family in the Orlando area. She fled Columbus aboard a Greyhound bus in July, saying her father had threatened to kill her because she had abandoned his faith -- Islam -- and become a Christian.
Her father, Mohamed Bary, a jeweler and Amway distributor, says that never happened. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation supports his claim. So does Franklin County Children's Services, the child welfare agency serving Columbus.
Amanda Wurst, a spokeswoman for Strickland, who is an ordained Methodist minister, first issued the statement yesterday. It puts Strickland at odds with Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist.
Three weeks ago, Crist issued a statement, saying he was grateful for a decision by Orange Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson to keep Rifqa in Florida.
Earlier that day, Crist had sent two powerful figures - Rob Wheeler, his top lawyer; and George Sheldon, secretary for the Florida Department of Children and Families – to a hearing at which the judge ruled that Rifqa should stay in Florida, at least temporarily.
"We'll continue to fight to protect Rifqa's safety and wellbeing as we move forward," said Crist in his statement.
Rifqa's story has set off a firestorm of reaction, especially among evangelical Christians. Crist's office reported today that it had received more than 10,000 pieces of e-mail about it.
Wurst said the Ohio governor's office has received more than 400 calls, e-mails and letters about the issue.
Many people have said they're sure Rifqa will be killed if she's returned to Ohio, if not by her father then by Columbus-area Muslims who believe she's dishonored them.
Columbus-area law enforcement officials say there's no evidence to support that claim, and Strickland's office said the same thing.
"We have no reason to believe that she would be unsafe in Ohio," according to his statement.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentine
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Rifqa Bary update--Parents File Case In Ohio To Try To Get Her Back by Lydia McGrew
Rifqa Bary's parents have filed a claim against her in Ohio stating that she is an "incorrigible minor" in an attempt to return jurisdiction--and more importantly, Rifqa herself--to Ohio. Judge Dawson in Florida has thus far claimed his court has jurisdiction on the grounds that no court in Ohio claims jurisdiction. This could change all that.
An "incorrigible minor" claim is, from what I've been able to glean, a claim on the part of parents that they cannot control their own child and need the help of the state to do so. Some of the actions that can support such a claim are refusing to obey "reasonable" parental orders, repeatedly running away, being truant, or using drugs or alcohol. Obviously, several of these don't apply to Rifqa, and she has run away only once. Of course, her parents have in one sense "lost control" of her, since she escaped from them! But when the juvenile claims abuse and danger from the parents, there must be (I assume) some mechanism for the court to consider these counterclaims rather than simply returning the child to the parents. The courts can order any number of things if a child is found to be an "incorrigible minor," from house arrest (particularly bad in this case) to foster care. (Unfortunately, I did not keep the most useful link I found on the definition of an "incorrigible minor.")
Commentators here and here at Atlas Shrugs seem to be under the impression that Rifqa will be returned to Ohio but not to her parents. Moreover, this commentator indicate that an "incorrigible minor" claim can be met by a counterclaim for emancipation by Rifqa. I had previously been under the impression that Ohio does not permit emancipation claims, but according to this commentator, what it does not permit is only spontaneous emancipation filings by minors. A minor can, however, try to be emancipated in response to an "incorrigible minor" claim. But is Rifqa financially independent? Would her lack of financial independence scotch an emancipation claim?
More to the point, this article from the Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 2, claims that "Ohio child welfare officials already have concluded it is safe for Rifqa to return. They want to place the girl in therapy and reunite her with her family." This doesn't sound like it supports the positive talk about the responsible and serious actions to be expected from the Ohio authorities. Several news stories have said that Rifqa's parents have consented for her to be put in foster care in Ohio, but not all have added that this is "for at least thirty days." If the Ohio authorities send her back to her parents after thirty days rather than extending the foster care, she could simply be spirited out of the country, a result all the more likely as it appears she is presently here illegally. (That is, of course, not her fault--so are her parents, by the way.)
All of these considerations are, of course, in addition to concerns about her increased danger if she is returned to Ohio at all, even to foster care.
September 14--Pamela Geller at Atlas reports that Rifqa's Sept. 29 hearing date in Florida has been postponed. I am a pessimist by nature and am concerned that this may indicate Florida's willingness to relinquish jurisdiction to Ohio.
Courtesy of: http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2009/09/rifqa_bary_updateparents_file.html
An "incorrigible minor" claim is, from what I've been able to glean, a claim on the part of parents that they cannot control their own child and need the help of the state to do so. Some of the actions that can support such a claim are refusing to obey "reasonable" parental orders, repeatedly running away, being truant, or using drugs or alcohol. Obviously, several of these don't apply to Rifqa, and she has run away only once. Of course, her parents have in one sense "lost control" of her, since she escaped from them! But when the juvenile claims abuse and danger from the parents, there must be (I assume) some mechanism for the court to consider these counterclaims rather than simply returning the child to the parents. The courts can order any number of things if a child is found to be an "incorrigible minor," from house arrest (particularly bad in this case) to foster care. (Unfortunately, I did not keep the most useful link I found on the definition of an "incorrigible minor.")
Commentators here and here at Atlas Shrugs seem to be under the impression that Rifqa will be returned to Ohio but not to her parents. Moreover, this commentator indicate that an "incorrigible minor" claim can be met by a counterclaim for emancipation by Rifqa. I had previously been under the impression that Ohio does not permit emancipation claims, but according to this commentator, what it does not permit is only spontaneous emancipation filings by minors. A minor can, however, try to be emancipated in response to an "incorrigible minor" claim. But is Rifqa financially independent? Would her lack of financial independence scotch an emancipation claim?
More to the point, this article from the Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 2, claims that "Ohio child welfare officials already have concluded it is safe for Rifqa to return. They want to place the girl in therapy and reunite her with her family." This doesn't sound like it supports the positive talk about the responsible and serious actions to be expected from the Ohio authorities. Several news stories have said that Rifqa's parents have consented for her to be put in foster care in Ohio, but not all have added that this is "for at least thirty days." If the Ohio authorities send her back to her parents after thirty days rather than extending the foster care, she could simply be spirited out of the country, a result all the more likely as it appears she is presently here illegally. (That is, of course, not her fault--so are her parents, by the way.)
All of these considerations are, of course, in addition to concerns about her increased danger if she is returned to Ohio at all, even to foster care.
September 14--Pamela Geller at Atlas reports that Rifqa's Sept. 29 hearing date in Florida has been postponed. I am a pessimist by nature and am concerned that this may indicate Florida's willingness to relinquish jurisdiction to Ohio.
Courtesy of: http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2009/09/rifqa_bary_updateparents_file.html
Rifqa Bary and the Plot To Destroy Our Constituion Submitted by Kyle
on September 15, 2009 - 12:43pm
Yesterday we noted that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's investigation into the wild allegations made by right-wing activists who have rallied in defense of 17 year-old Christian convert Rifqa Bary reported that their claims were false and that Bary would face no danger if she were returned to her parents in Ohio.
The summary has been posted on-line [PDF] and the St. Petersburg Times' Michael Kruse provides this report on its findings:
So, of course, that means that the FDLE report itself is now a danger to Bary and places the United States on the road to Islamic totalitarianism, as Frank Gaffney explains:
Yesterday we noted that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's investigation into the wild allegations made by right-wing activists who have rallied in defense of 17 year-old Christian convert Rifqa Bary reported that their claims were false and that Bary would face no danger if she were returned to her parents in Ohio.
The summary has been posted on-line [PDF] and the St. Petersburg Times' Michael Kruse provides this report on its findings:
In her interview in the FDLE's investigation, Bary said her father threatened her by holding her laptop over her head, saying he was going to kill her. Her father denied threatening her. He said he grabbed the laptop and lifted it to throw it, but reconsidered because it was expensive.It appears as if just about every claim made by right-wing activists in this case has turned out to be unsubstantiated according the FDLE investigation, which concluded that there is no evidence of any abuse and no indication that she's in danger if she is returned to her Muslim parents in Ohio.
Bary also said her father once hit her in the face for interrupting a conversation, and on another occasion hit her for not wanting to wear the Islamic head scarf called the hijab, but that he hadn't hit her since middle school. Her father denied ever having hit her. Her mother and her brother said they had never seen him hit her. A spokesman at the school district where the girl goes to school told the FDLE investigators that no abuse or suspected abuse was ever reported.
Bary told investigators that she had told a teacher at her school about her fears and that the teacher offered her home as a haven. The teacher told investigators that she made the offer because Bary had told her she was uncomfortable with some of the parties her older brother was having when their parents weren't home.
Bary told investigators that she hitchhiked to the Greyhound station. One of her friends, Brian M. Williams, told FDLE that he picked her up from another friend's house and took her to the bus.
Bary told investigators she used money she had saved from her part-time job at a Chinese restaurant to buy her bus ticket. But someone in Orlando bought the ticket, according to the report, using "a fictitious name."
Bary told investigators that her parents didn't know that she was a cheerleader. Her father told the FDLE investigators that he knew about her cheerleading, approved of it, and sometimes took her to practice. In the Bary home in Ohio, the report noted, pictures of the girl in her cheerleading uniform were "prominently displayed in the family living room."
So, of course, that means that the FDLE report itself is now a danger to Bary and places the United States on the road to Islamic totalitarianism, as Frank Gaffney explains:
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is supposed to be in the business of saving lives. Yet, a just-released report by FDLE investigators may prove to be a death sentence.So, in short: the FDLE report concluded that Bary was in no danger and that pretty much everything her right-wing supporters had been claiming was false, which, according to those right-wing supporters, only proves that the FDLE and others are engaged in a conspiracy to kill Bary and "replace our Constitution and the liberties it enshrines with the brutal and repressive program known as Shariah."
...
Unfortunately, the Florida investigators failed to perform their assignment. They found “no conclusive reports of threats” against Rifqa Bary. At best, their report is incomplete. At worst, it is misleading, possibly fatally so.
...
Should such a restoration take place in this case, it will be further evidence that America is succumbing to the stealth jihad that is inexorably insinuating that seditious Islamic program into our society, in Florida and elsewhere across this country. In that event, the result of failing to fight the Islamists in this case may prove to be not just a death sentence for Rifqa Bary. It could turn out as well to be an important milestone in the submission of all Americans to the program that explicitly seeks to replace our Constitution and the liberties it enshrines with the brutal and repressive program known as Shariah.
The Rifqa Bary FDLE Report
This is the summary of the investigation that was done by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement regarding the alleged claim by Rifqa Bary that her life was in danger in the state of Ohio. Following link gives the report.
http://media.myfoxorlando.com/documents/FDLE_RifqaBary.pdf
http://media.myfoxorlando.com/documents/FDLE_RifqaBary.pdf
Monday, September 14, 2009
Fathima Rifqa Bary: Orlando pastors that let Fathima Rifqa Bary into their home 'reorganizing' church
Amy L. Edwards, Sentinel Staff Writer
3:50 p.m. EDT, September 9, 2009
Blake and Beverly Lorenz comforted teenage Christian convert Fathima Rifqa Bary but are no longer associated with Global Revolution Church. They're not saying what prompted the change.
The pastors who made national headlines after taking in a teen Muslim-to-Christian convert from Ohio are reorganizing their Orlando church.
What that means isn't clear, though pastor Blake Lorenz is upbeat.
"The lawyers are trying to figure out which way it's going to go," he said. "It's not like a negative thing. We're having to reorganize and restructure." He wouldn't say why.
Pastors Beverly and Blake Lorenz took in teen convert Fathima Rifqa Bary after she ran away from her parents, saying her life was in danger because she converted -- a claim her family denies.
The Lorenzes helped start Global Revolution Church in October after spending more than 15 years at Pine Castle United Methodist Church, located south of downtown Orlando on Orange Avenue. Global Revolution has been meeting in a theater inside the Cinemark at Festival Bay.
Blake Lorenz said his church will get a different name and a new meeting spot but it will still have the same congregation. He would not say what prompted the change.
"The church is still going great," he said. "We're still pastoring. We're doing great. It's really good."
Attempts to reach the church's corporate officers have been unsuccessful.
"I hesitate to say anything," Lorenz said during the phone interview this morning.
3:50 p.m. EDT, September 9, 2009
Blake and Beverly Lorenz comforted teenage Christian convert Fathima Rifqa Bary but are no longer associated with Global Revolution Church. They're not saying what prompted the change.
What that means isn't clear, though pastor Blake Lorenz is upbeat.
"The lawyers are trying to figure out which way it's going to go," he said. "It's not like a negative thing. We're having to reorganize and restructure." He wouldn't say why.
Pastors Beverly and Blake Lorenz took in teen convert Fathima Rifqa Bary after she ran away from her parents, saying her life was in danger because she converted -- a claim her family denies.
The Lorenzes helped start Global Revolution Church in October after spending more than 15 years at Pine Castle United Methodist Church, located south of downtown Orlando on Orange Avenue. Global Revolution has been meeting in a theater inside the Cinemark at Festival Bay.
Blake Lorenz said his church will get a different name and a new meeting spot but it will still have the same congregation. He would not say what prompted the change.
"The church is still going great," he said. "We're still pastoring. We're doing great. It's really good."
Attempts to reach the church's corporate officers have been unsuccessful.
"I hesitate to say anything," Lorenz said during the phone interview this morning.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Christian Runaway By Arian Campo-Flores | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 6:26 p.m. ET Sep 9, 2009
High-school student Rifqa Bary says her conversion to Christianity threatened her life. Her Muslim parents say they just want their daughter back—no matter what faith she practices.
But Bary spoke with such conviction that she eventually convinced Williams. And when she ran away from home and fled to Orlando in July, claiming she was in danger of falling victim to an "honor killing," it seemed like all the more reason to trust that she was telling the truth. Why else would she uproot her life that way? Nevertheless, three separate investigations—two by authorities in Ohio and one by law enforcement in Florida—have found no reason to believe that her allegations are true or her life is imperiled. Her parents vehemently deny all the accusations she has made against them and say they have no issue with her being a Christian. Yet Bary continues to maintain that if she's returned to Ohio, she'll be murdered.
The dispute is now the subject of a rancorous legal battle in Florida family court. It's up to a judge to sort through the facts and determine what's best for Bary, 17, who's living with a foster family in Orlando. But that won't be easy. Her case has spilled far beyond the courtroom walls and escalated into a virulent religious clash. She's being represented by John Stemberger, a conservative Christian lawyer who was involved in the battle over Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman kept alive with a feeding tube until it was disconnected in 2005. He and various right-wing groups have unleashed a barrage of allegations against Bary's parents and a mosque they attend in Columbus, Ohio. Yet as Krista Bartholomew, Bary's guardian ad litem (appointed by the court to offer guidance on the girl's best interests), said in a hearing last Thursday, "This is not a holy war. This is a case about a frightened little girl and a broken family."
Mohamed and Aysha Bary left Sri Lanka in 2000 with their two kids, Rifqa and an older brother, and moved to New York (their third child, a boy, was born in the United States). The reason: concern about Rifqa's well-being. As a child, she'd fallen on a toy airplane that pierced her right eye. Doctors in Sri Lanka wanted to remove the eye, prompting Mohamed to relocate the whole family so Rifqa could obtain better medical treatment. In the end, her eye was spared, though she can't see out of it. Then, in 2004, Mohamed moved the family again, this time to seek a better public education for the kids. He settled on the Columbus area, which had highly ranked schools. At New Albany High School, Rifqa excelled. She maintained a 3.5 grade-point average and became a member of the cheerleading squad. Mohamed "is so proud of his children," says Gary Abbott, his closest friend in the U.S. (and a Christian). "He values them more than his own life."
Soon after arriving in Ohio, Rifqa began exploring Christianity. (Though the Barys raised their kids Muslim, Mohamed says the family didn't attend mosque regularly, due to his travel schedule as a gem dealer.) According to Jamal Jivanjee, a Muslim-to-Christian convert who later befriended Rifqa (and now lives in Nashville), she first learned about Jesus Christ from a girl in junior high who shared Scripture with her. The idea that "you could have a relationship with God was a very attractive concept to her," says Jivanjee. In 2005, Rifqa became a Christian at Korean United Methodist Church in Columbus, according to an affidavit filed by her lawyer. With time, she became more fervent about her beliefs. Williams says she regularly attended prayer groups and participated in pro-life gatherings at abortion clinics. She also connected with fellow believers online, through religious groups like the United States of Prayer on Facebook. "The Internet became her church," says Williams, who calls Bary "by far the most passionate Christian I think I've ever met."
Bary's claims about her parents' hostility to her new religion date back at least a year. In an August 2008 e-mail to Jivanjee, she described her parents as "very devoted Muslims" and wrote that after accepting Jesus at the age of 13, "of course I couldn't tell them. Where would I live and go?" Noting that Jivanjee was also a convert, she asked, "How were you able to handle the persecution?" In her affidavit, Bary contends that her father forced her to attend youth gatherings every Saturday at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Dublin, Ohio (though the center says its records show she attended only three classes there in 2007). Mohamed, a polite, mild-mannered man who seems deeply pained by the acrimony, responds that all this is nonsense. He and his wife learned that Rifqa considered herself a Christian when she was 14, he says, and though they would have preferred she remain Muslim, "we did not make a big fuss about it." Plus, he points out, if they were indeed such fanatics, why would they have let their daughter prance around as a cheerleader?
Mohamed says Rifqa's behavior began to change more markedly at the beginning of this summer. She became withdrawn, barely speaking to him when they drove places together. She rejected the company of her little brother, with whom she'd always been affectionate. She would stay up late, reading her Bible on the balcony. Aysha also found books in the girl's room that she found troubling, like Is the Injeel Corrupted? (Its author, Fouad Masri, believes that "radical Islam is a reflection of a spiritual thirst that can only be quenched through the teachings and the life of Christ," according to one of his press releases.) Moreover, Rifqa was constantly on Facebook, interacting with people her parents had no clue about. "We were worried," says Mohamed.
Rifqa's religious zeal seems to have intensified during this period. She asked Williams, who was licensed at the nondenominational All Nations Church earlier this year, to baptize her, and he agreed. So one afternoon in late June, he says, they held a ceremony at Hoover Dam Recreation Area in Columbus that was attended by a few dozen of her friends and acquaintances. Bary and Williams waded into the lake, and she shared testimony about how she came to know Jesus and prayed that her family would become Christians as well. Then she was immersed.
Around this time, according to Williams, Bary became convinced that she had to prepare to flee. He says she reached out to folks on Facebook and heard back from at least six or seven who volunteered to take her in. The final impetus for her escape apparently came from two episodes she recounts in her affidavit. First, she maintains that her father confronted her about her Christianity. "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!" she says he yelled at her. "I will kill you!" (Mohamed emphatically denies this.) Then, she alleges, her mother discovered a Christian book in her bedroom, burst into tears, and told Rifqa she would "have to be sent back to Sri Lanka to be dealt with." (Mohamed says Aysha reprimanded the girl for coming home late one night and made a comment along the lines of "We came here for your education. If it goes on like this, we'll all have to go back to Sri Lanka.") Around July 17 or 18, Jivanjee received an e-mail from Bary. "The day has come that I dreaded," she wrote. "I'm ready to die for my faith."
Early on the morning of July 19, Bary took off. According to her subsequent account to Williams, she managed to hitch a ride to a church from a woman she didn't know and spent all day praying there. Then someone drove her to a friend's house, and eventually she was taken to a Greyhound station. She boarded a bus, and some 30 hours later, on July 22, she arrived in Orlando, where Blake and Beverly Lorenz live. Though Bary had never met the couple—both pastors of the evangelical Global Revolution Church—Beverly was one of the people she had communicated with on Facebook. (The Lorenzes declined an interview request.)
Bary's parents, who knew none of this, became frantic when they discovered their daughter was gone. They filed a missing-persons report with Columbus police and reached out to everyone they could think of. Police say the Barys cooperated fully with their investigation and seemed like loving parents who were worried sick. Searching among Rifqa's personal items, the Barys found a flash drive filled with spiritual writings by Williams. He'd already spoken to the family and told them he didn't know where Rifqa was. But on Aug. 5—more than two weeks after the girl went missing—Columbus police interviewed him by phone (he was now living in Kansas City, Mo.). He says they threatened to arrest him if Bary didn't appear in the next 24 hours. Immediately after that call, he says, Kansas City police went to his home looking for the girl. Alarmed, Williams says he called and e-mailed all the people he knew Bary had been in touch with, including Blake Lorenz, who's a Facebook friend of his.
The Lorenzes had been housing Bary the whole time, even though it's a misdemeanor in Florida to shelter an unmarried minor for more than 24 hours (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement won't say whether it's investigating the couple). Their attorney, Mat Staver, says they consulted various agencies and nonprofits regarding how to handle Bary's situation. They also called the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) several times, though they didn't provide the specifics of her case until Aug. 6 (the day after Williams contacted Blake Lorenz). On Aug. 7, Orlando police picked up Bary, and soon she was in DCF custody. In a procedural error, however, the agency allowed the girl to return to the Lorenz home for three days before moving her to a licensed foster family. During that time, the couple allowed a local TV news crew to tape an interview with Bary that soon appeared on YouTube. Distraught and at times hysterical, the girl alleged that her parents had threatened to commit an honor killing against her. "If they love God more than me, they have to do this," she said. "I'm fighting for my life." (Muslim scholars say that in Islam, there's no such thing as an honor killing for apostasy.)
Once Bary's case became public, numerous Christian conservatives fanned the flames. "This conflict between Islam and Christianity is going to grow greater," said Blake Lorenz, according to the St. Petersburg Times. "This conflict between good and evil is going to grow greater." Stemberger, Bary's lawyer, filed a 33-page memorandum in her case that's filled with innuendo and provocative allegations against the Noor Center, the mosque that the Barys occasionally attend (on a conference call with reporters, Stemberger insisted that the accusations have been "documented extensively"). Among them: that the center is connected to an FBI terror probe (which the FBI denies) and that its CEO has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood (which, along with every other allegation, the Noor Center denies). The mosque is actually regarded as mainstream and regularly hosts interfaith events. "Unfortunately, hate groups appear to be using this family matter as an opportunity to attack the Muslim community and Islamic organizations in order to further their religious and political goals," the center said in a statement.
The court proceedings have been no less combative. At an arraignment last week, the Barys formally denied the allegations made against them. During the proceedings, eight attorneys representing various parties—Rifqa, her parents, and DCF among them—clashed repeatedly, prompting Rifqa to cry at one point. The judge overseeing the case, Daniel Dawson, has ordered the parties into mediation, but it's clear that is unlikely to get anywhere. As a result, the case will probably go to trial (a pretrial hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29), leaving it up to Dawson to decide whether Rifqa will remain in Florida—which she says she wants—or be reunited with her parents. The Barys have volunteered to participate in family counseling with Franklin County Children Services in Ohio, and they agreed to let Rifqa stay with a foster family there in the meantime. But for now, the state of Florida has custody of her. "It's very hard for us to believe that it has gone so far," says Mohamed. "We love her; we want her to come back. She can be a Christian, that's not a problem."
Courtesy: http://www.newsweek.com/id/215100/page/1
High-school student Rifqa Bary says her conversion to Christianity threatened her life. Her Muslim parents say they just want their daughter back—no matter what faith she practices.
Family torn apart: Aysha and Mohamed Bary (left) speak to reporters in Columbus, Ohio, on Aug. 13. Rifqa Bary gets a hug from her caseworker Maxine Kisimbi (right) during a hearing in Orlando on Sept. 3.
Brian Williams wasn't sure what to make of his young friend's stories. He'd met Rifqa Bary, a high-school student from Gahanna, Ohio, at a prayer house at Ohio State University late last year. Intensely devout and deeply inquisitive, she recounted that she came from a Muslim family but had converted to Christianity. This had enraged her parents, who threatened her with violence, she said. She had to hide her faith, conceal her Bible, and sneak away to attend church. According to Williams, a nondenominational minister, she researched the persecution of Christians around the world obsessively and lived in constant fear that her parents would kill her for apostasy. At first "I didn't believe her, to be honest," says Williams. "Maybe she's just young and overemotional," he thought.
But Bary spoke with such conviction that she eventually convinced Williams. And when she ran away from home and fled to Orlando in July, claiming she was in danger of falling victim to an "honor killing," it seemed like all the more reason to trust that she was telling the truth. Why else would she uproot her life that way? Nevertheless, three separate investigations—two by authorities in Ohio and one by law enforcement in Florida—have found no reason to believe that her allegations are true or her life is imperiled. Her parents vehemently deny all the accusations she has made against them and say they have no issue with her being a Christian. Yet Bary continues to maintain that if she's returned to Ohio, she'll be murdered.
The dispute is now the subject of a rancorous legal battle in Florida family court. It's up to a judge to sort through the facts and determine what's best for Bary, 17, who's living with a foster family in Orlando. But that won't be easy. Her case has spilled far beyond the courtroom walls and escalated into a virulent religious clash. She's being represented by John Stemberger, a conservative Christian lawyer who was involved in the battle over Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman kept alive with a feeding tube until it was disconnected in 2005. He and various right-wing groups have unleashed a barrage of allegations against Bary's parents and a mosque they attend in Columbus, Ohio. Yet as Krista Bartholomew, Bary's guardian ad litem (appointed by the court to offer guidance on the girl's best interests), said in a hearing last Thursday, "This is not a holy war. This is a case about a frightened little girl and a broken family."
Mohamed and Aysha Bary left Sri Lanka in 2000 with their two kids, Rifqa and an older brother, and moved to New York (their third child, a boy, was born in the United States). The reason: concern about Rifqa's well-being. As a child, she'd fallen on a toy airplane that pierced her right eye. Doctors in Sri Lanka wanted to remove the eye, prompting Mohamed to relocate the whole family so Rifqa could obtain better medical treatment. In the end, her eye was spared, though she can't see out of it. Then, in 2004, Mohamed moved the family again, this time to seek a better public education for the kids. He settled on the Columbus area, which had highly ranked schools. At New Albany High School, Rifqa excelled. She maintained a 3.5 grade-point average and became a member of the cheerleading squad. Mohamed "is so proud of his children," says Gary Abbott, his closest friend in the U.S. (and a Christian). "He values them more than his own life."
Soon after arriving in Ohio, Rifqa began exploring Christianity. (Though the Barys raised their kids Muslim, Mohamed says the family didn't attend mosque regularly, due to his travel schedule as a gem dealer.) According to Jamal Jivanjee, a Muslim-to-Christian convert who later befriended Rifqa (and now lives in Nashville), she first learned about Jesus Christ from a girl in junior high who shared Scripture with her. The idea that "you could have a relationship with God was a very attractive concept to her," says Jivanjee. In 2005, Rifqa became a Christian at Korean United Methodist Church in Columbus, according to an affidavit filed by her lawyer. With time, she became more fervent about her beliefs. Williams says she regularly attended prayer groups and participated in pro-life gatherings at abortion clinics. She also connected with fellow believers online, through religious groups like the United States of Prayer on Facebook. "The Internet became her church," says Williams, who calls Bary "by far the most passionate Christian I think I've ever met."
Bary's claims about her parents' hostility to her new religion date back at least a year. In an August 2008 e-mail to Jivanjee, she described her parents as "very devoted Muslims" and wrote that after accepting Jesus at the age of 13, "of course I couldn't tell them. Where would I live and go?" Noting that Jivanjee was also a convert, she asked, "How were you able to handle the persecution?" In her affidavit, Bary contends that her father forced her to attend youth gatherings every Saturday at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Dublin, Ohio (though the center says its records show she attended only three classes there in 2007). Mohamed, a polite, mild-mannered man who seems deeply pained by the acrimony, responds that all this is nonsense. He and his wife learned that Rifqa considered herself a Christian when she was 14, he says, and though they would have preferred she remain Muslim, "we did not make a big fuss about it." Plus, he points out, if they were indeed such fanatics, why would they have let their daughter prance around as a cheerleader?
Mohamed says Rifqa's behavior began to change more markedly at the beginning of this summer. She became withdrawn, barely speaking to him when they drove places together. She rejected the company of her little brother, with whom she'd always been affectionate. She would stay up late, reading her Bible on the balcony. Aysha also found books in the girl's room that she found troubling, like Is the Injeel Corrupted? (Its author, Fouad Masri, believes that "radical Islam is a reflection of a spiritual thirst that can only be quenched through the teachings and the life of Christ," according to one of his press releases.) Moreover, Rifqa was constantly on Facebook, interacting with people her parents had no clue about. "We were worried," says Mohamed.
Rifqa's religious zeal seems to have intensified during this period. She asked Williams, who was licensed at the nondenominational All Nations Church earlier this year, to baptize her, and he agreed. So one afternoon in late June, he says, they held a ceremony at Hoover Dam Recreation Area in Columbus that was attended by a few dozen of her friends and acquaintances. Bary and Williams waded into the lake, and she shared testimony about how she came to know Jesus and prayed that her family would become Christians as well. Then she was immersed.
Around this time, according to Williams, Bary became convinced that she had to prepare to flee. He says she reached out to folks on Facebook and heard back from at least six or seven who volunteered to take her in. The final impetus for her escape apparently came from two episodes she recounts in her affidavit. First, she maintains that her father confronted her about her Christianity. "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!" she says he yelled at her. "I will kill you!" (Mohamed emphatically denies this.) Then, she alleges, her mother discovered a Christian book in her bedroom, burst into tears, and told Rifqa she would "have to be sent back to Sri Lanka to be dealt with." (Mohamed says Aysha reprimanded the girl for coming home late one night and made a comment along the lines of "We came here for your education. If it goes on like this, we'll all have to go back to Sri Lanka.") Around July 17 or 18, Jivanjee received an e-mail from Bary. "The day has come that I dreaded," she wrote. "I'm ready to die for my faith."
Early on the morning of July 19, Bary took off. According to her subsequent account to Williams, she managed to hitch a ride to a church from a woman she didn't know and spent all day praying there. Then someone drove her to a friend's house, and eventually she was taken to a Greyhound station. She boarded a bus, and some 30 hours later, on July 22, she arrived in Orlando, where Blake and Beverly Lorenz live. Though Bary had never met the couple—both pastors of the evangelical Global Revolution Church—Beverly was one of the people she had communicated with on Facebook. (The Lorenzes declined an interview request.)
Bary's parents, who knew none of this, became frantic when they discovered their daughter was gone. They filed a missing-persons report with Columbus police and reached out to everyone they could think of. Police say the Barys cooperated fully with their investigation and seemed like loving parents who were worried sick. Searching among Rifqa's personal items, the Barys found a flash drive filled with spiritual writings by Williams. He'd already spoken to the family and told them he didn't know where Rifqa was. But on Aug. 5—more than two weeks after the girl went missing—Columbus police interviewed him by phone (he was now living in Kansas City, Mo.). He says they threatened to arrest him if Bary didn't appear in the next 24 hours. Immediately after that call, he says, Kansas City police went to his home looking for the girl. Alarmed, Williams says he called and e-mailed all the people he knew Bary had been in touch with, including Blake Lorenz, who's a Facebook friend of his.
The Lorenzes had been housing Bary the whole time, even though it's a misdemeanor in Florida to shelter an unmarried minor for more than 24 hours (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement won't say whether it's investigating the couple). Their attorney, Mat Staver, says they consulted various agencies and nonprofits regarding how to handle Bary's situation. They also called the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) several times, though they didn't provide the specifics of her case until Aug. 6 (the day after Williams contacted Blake Lorenz). On Aug. 7, Orlando police picked up Bary, and soon she was in DCF custody. In a procedural error, however, the agency allowed the girl to return to the Lorenz home for three days before moving her to a licensed foster family. During that time, the couple allowed a local TV news crew to tape an interview with Bary that soon appeared on YouTube. Distraught and at times hysterical, the girl alleged that her parents had threatened to commit an honor killing against her. "If they love God more than me, they have to do this," she said. "I'm fighting for my life." (Muslim scholars say that in Islam, there's no such thing as an honor killing for apostasy.)
Once Bary's case became public, numerous Christian conservatives fanned the flames. "This conflict between Islam and Christianity is going to grow greater," said Blake Lorenz, according to the St. Petersburg Times. "This conflict between good and evil is going to grow greater." Stemberger, Bary's lawyer, filed a 33-page memorandum in her case that's filled with innuendo and provocative allegations against the Noor Center, the mosque that the Barys occasionally attend (on a conference call with reporters, Stemberger insisted that the accusations have been "documented extensively"). Among them: that the center is connected to an FBI terror probe (which the FBI denies) and that its CEO has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood (which, along with every other allegation, the Noor Center denies). The mosque is actually regarded as mainstream and regularly hosts interfaith events. "Unfortunately, hate groups appear to be using this family matter as an opportunity to attack the Muslim community and Islamic organizations in order to further their religious and political goals," the center said in a statement.
The court proceedings have been no less combative. At an arraignment last week, the Barys formally denied the allegations made against them. During the proceedings, eight attorneys representing various parties—Rifqa, her parents, and DCF among them—clashed repeatedly, prompting Rifqa to cry at one point. The judge overseeing the case, Daniel Dawson, has ordered the parties into mediation, but it's clear that is unlikely to get anywhere. As a result, the case will probably go to trial (a pretrial hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29), leaving it up to Dawson to decide whether Rifqa will remain in Florida—which she says she wants—or be reunited with her parents. The Barys have volunteered to participate in family counseling with Franklin County Children Services in Ohio, and they agreed to let Rifqa stay with a foster family there in the meantime. But for now, the state of Florida has custody of her. "It's very hard for us to believe that it has gone so far," says Mohamed. "We love her; we want her to come back. She can be a Christian, that's not a problem."
Courtesy: http://www.newsweek.com/id/215100/page/1
OF FACEBOOK, FAITH AND A RUNAWAY TEEN By MICHAEL KRUSE, TIMES STAFF WRITER, ORLANDO
Copyright 2009 Times Publishing Company - All Rights Reserved
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
September 8, 2009 Tuesday
0 South Pinellas Edition
NATIONAL; Pg. 1A
As evangelicals spread their message via the Internet, they reach folks like Rifqa Bary.
She lived in Central Ohio, and she fled to Central Florida, but the story of Rifqa Bary didn't start in either place. It started on Facebook.
Bary, 17, ran away from home in July because she believes her Muslim family has to kill her because of her conversion to Christianity. She got on a bus and for 16 days lived in the home of evangelical pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church after she had gotten to know them through a Facebook prayer group.
The Internet has made meeting more people in more places faster and easier than ever before, and churches are taking advantage. A recent Georgetown University study said 87 percent of religious organizations use the Internet to attract new members. Evangelical Christians, experts say, are particularly good at using social networking sites as powerful tools to proselytize.
Global Revolution isless than a year old and meets in a movie theater in a mall, but it still can have a life-altering impact on a teenage girl and her family more than 1,000 miles away.
"Facebook," Beverly Lorenz said last month in an interview, "is part of my ministry."
"Facebook," Mohamed Bary, the girl's father, said last week, "that was the problem. Not Facebook, but the people who were on who influenced her."
"Evangelicals are aggressively pursuing souls online," said Lee Rainie, the director of the nonpartisan Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"This is pretty deeply embedded in the evangelical communities," he said. "They see it as their great cause: Go ye into all the world."
- - -
Beverly Lorenz, 51, exchanged "seven or eight" Facebook messages with Bary, 16 at the time, this spring and this summer. They had a wee-hours phone call in early July.
The girl showed up at their home late on July 21.
Beverly Lorenz is third generation in the church. Her father was a pastor. So was her grandfather.
She met Blake Lorenz at her father's church. They've been married almost 30 years.
Blake Lorenz, 53, bills himself as a former professional baseball player turned longtime pastor. He's a 1977 graduate of Rollins College in Winter Park and for a while was the school's career leader in pitching wins. He played one summer in the low minor leagues in the Chicago Cubs' organization. He pitched one inning, hit two home runs, and was released.
He felt low and lost until January 1980, he said, when he "met Jesus Christ" in his bedroom.
He was the pastor at Pine Castle United Methodist Church in Orlando for 24 years before he left last fall to start the Global Revolution Church across town. Global Revolution gets together in Theater 10 at the megaplex at Festival Bay. A recent Sunday morning service started with a booming movie-trailer voice: "Buckle up and hold on!"
"Revolution," says the church's Web site, globalrevolutionchurch.org, "means a sudden and radical change. We are about changing our culture."
- - -
The first call Blake Lorenz made to the Department of Children and Families was on July 29. He didn't give his name, and he didn't give Rifqa Bary's name, either, he said, because they told him the girl probably would be taken home.
Meanwhile, up in Columbus, the police were trying to find Bary. Her cell phone was off, so they couldn't track her signal - but her dad paid her bill, so he had access to her call log. He gave it to police.
That led to a name: Brian M. Williams. He's a 2008 Ohio State grad, an aspiring pastor, and was a Facebook friend of Bary and Blake Lorenz. He moved recently from Columbus to Kansas City, Mo., where he was interning at the International House of Prayer, a giant facility in a renovated strip center that the people there call the "missions base" of "a global worship movement."
Columbus police contacted Kansas City police. Kansas City police went to his address. Columbus police talked to Williams on the phone.
Blake Lorenz says he got a call from Williams on Aug. 5. They were here, Williams told Lorenz, looking for Bary.
On Aug. 9, the day before she was put in foster care with a different Christian family, Barywas at the Sunday service at Global Revolution. Blake Lorenz, calling her Anna, talked about her in his sermon.
"How should we live?" he asked his followers. "What choices are we going to make when we begin to get persecuted?
"Anna's been living this out. Anna is a wonderful young woman of God. ... She was a Muslim. Gave her life to Christ. Fell in love with Jesus. She fled for her life.
"The fear we live with," he continued, "is the police were going to show up, take us off, arrest us. ... Oh, that couldn't happen? It happened to the man who baptized her. The police showed up at his apartment in Kansas City, to arrest him, illegally searched his apartment and all the apartments there, looking for her, convinced she was there."
Initially, the sermon was posted on the church's Web site.
The next day the Florida Department of Children and Families decided the Lorenzes now were "not appropriate placement" for Bary.
"Home study," a supervisor wrote, "was approved prior to being informed that the pastor's family was involved with possibly helping the child run away from Ohio."
- - -
Helping.
That could mean a lot of things. Those Facebook messages she exchanged with Beverly Lorenz? The 4 a.m. phone call? The prayers they said together that night?
It could also mean a lot of people. The United States of Prayer, the Facebook group through which Bary met the Lorenzes, has hundreds of members from all over the country.
"The Internet," said Rainie, from the Pew Internet project, "has certainly scrambled the realities of distance and time. Legal authorities are having a new set of challenges. It's a very complicated and not at all settled element of the law now."
Where to look, and how? And who does the looking? Geographical jurisdiction has its limits in a world where geography hardly matters anymore.
Josh McKoy, 20, a Metro State college student in Denver, met Bary through his friend Brian M. Williams and messaged with her on Facebook.
"Brian's known her for a long time," McKoy said over the phone last month. "I don't know how they met but he was a huge help to her. Brian had bought her a Christian book.
"Oftentimes," McKoy said, "he was her transport to church and things like that."
Did Williams have something to do with her bus trip? Did Bary buy her ticket to Orlando?
"We can't confirm that," Columbus police Detective Jerry Cupp said.
Did the Lorenzes buy her bus ticket? They say no.
Who then? They won't say. They're concerned for that person's safety.
"A lot of people helped Rifqa," Blake Lorenz said.
Times news researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
September 8, 2009 Tuesday
0 South Pinellas Edition
NATIONAL; Pg. 1A
As evangelicals spread their message via the Internet, they reach folks like Rifqa Bary.
She lived in Central Ohio, and she fled to Central Florida, but the story of Rifqa Bary didn't start in either place. It started on Facebook.
Bary, 17, ran away from home in July because she believes her Muslim family has to kill her because of her conversion to Christianity. She got on a bus and for 16 days lived in the home of evangelical pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church after she had gotten to know them through a Facebook prayer group.
The Internet has made meeting more people in more places faster and easier than ever before, and churches are taking advantage. A recent Georgetown University study said 87 percent of religious organizations use the Internet to attract new members. Evangelical Christians, experts say, are particularly good at using social networking sites as powerful tools to proselytize.
Global Revolution isless than a year old and meets in a movie theater in a mall, but it still can have a life-altering impact on a teenage girl and her family more than 1,000 miles away.
"Facebook," Beverly Lorenz said last month in an interview, "is part of my ministry."
"Facebook," Mohamed Bary, the girl's father, said last week, "that was the problem. Not Facebook, but the people who were on who influenced her."
"Evangelicals are aggressively pursuing souls online," said Lee Rainie, the director of the nonpartisan Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"This is pretty deeply embedded in the evangelical communities," he said. "They see it as their great cause: Go ye into all the world."
- - -
Beverly Lorenz, 51, exchanged "seven or eight" Facebook messages with Bary, 16 at the time, this spring and this summer. They had a wee-hours phone call in early July.
The girl showed up at their home late on July 21.
Beverly Lorenz is third generation in the church. Her father was a pastor. So was her grandfather.
She met Blake Lorenz at her father's church. They've been married almost 30 years.
Blake Lorenz, 53, bills himself as a former professional baseball player turned longtime pastor. He's a 1977 graduate of Rollins College in Winter Park and for a while was the school's career leader in pitching wins. He played one summer in the low minor leagues in the Chicago Cubs' organization. He pitched one inning, hit two home runs, and was released.
He felt low and lost until January 1980, he said, when he "met Jesus Christ" in his bedroom.
He was the pastor at Pine Castle United Methodist Church in Orlando for 24 years before he left last fall to start the Global Revolution Church across town. Global Revolution gets together in Theater 10 at the megaplex at Festival Bay. A recent Sunday morning service started with a booming movie-trailer voice: "Buckle up and hold on!"
"Revolution," says the church's Web site, globalrevolutionchurch.org, "means a sudden and radical change. We are about changing our culture."
- - -
The first call Blake Lorenz made to the Department of Children and Families was on July 29. He didn't give his name, and he didn't give Rifqa Bary's name, either, he said, because they told him the girl probably would be taken home.
Meanwhile, up in Columbus, the police were trying to find Bary. Her cell phone was off, so they couldn't track her signal - but her dad paid her bill, so he had access to her call log. He gave it to police.
That led to a name: Brian M. Williams. He's a 2008 Ohio State grad, an aspiring pastor, and was a Facebook friend of Bary and Blake Lorenz. He moved recently from Columbus to Kansas City, Mo., where he was interning at the International House of Prayer, a giant facility in a renovated strip center that the people there call the "missions base" of "a global worship movement."
Columbus police contacted Kansas City police. Kansas City police went to his address. Columbus police talked to Williams on the phone.
Blake Lorenz says he got a call from Williams on Aug. 5. They were here, Williams told Lorenz, looking for Bary.
On Aug. 9, the day before she was put in foster care with a different Christian family, Barywas at the Sunday service at Global Revolution. Blake Lorenz, calling her Anna, talked about her in his sermon.
"How should we live?" he asked his followers. "What choices are we going to make when we begin to get persecuted?
"Anna's been living this out. Anna is a wonderful young woman of God. ... She was a Muslim. Gave her life to Christ. Fell in love with Jesus. She fled for her life.
"The fear we live with," he continued, "is the police were going to show up, take us off, arrest us. ... Oh, that couldn't happen? It happened to the man who baptized her. The police showed up at his apartment in Kansas City, to arrest him, illegally searched his apartment and all the apartments there, looking for her, convinced she was there."
Initially, the sermon was posted on the church's Web site.
The next day the Florida Department of Children and Families decided the Lorenzes now were "not appropriate placement" for Bary.
"Home study," a supervisor wrote, "was approved prior to being informed that the pastor's family was involved with possibly helping the child run away from Ohio."
- - -
Helping.
That could mean a lot of things. Those Facebook messages she exchanged with Beverly Lorenz? The 4 a.m. phone call? The prayers they said together that night?
It could also mean a lot of people. The United States of Prayer, the Facebook group through which Bary met the Lorenzes, has hundreds of members from all over the country.
"The Internet," said Rainie, from the Pew Internet project, "has certainly scrambled the realities of distance and time. Legal authorities are having a new set of challenges. It's a very complicated and not at all settled element of the law now."
Where to look, and how? And who does the looking? Geographical jurisdiction has its limits in a world where geography hardly matters anymore.
Josh McKoy, 20, a Metro State college student in Denver, met Bary through his friend Brian M. Williams and messaged with her on Facebook.
"Brian's known her for a long time," McKoy said over the phone last month. "I don't know how they met but he was a huge help to her. Brian had bought her a Christian book.
"Oftentimes," McKoy said, "he was her transport to church and things like that."
Did Williams have something to do with her bus trip? Did Bary buy her ticket to Orlando?
"We can't confirm that," Columbus police Detective Jerry Cupp said.
Did the Lorenzes buy her bus ticket? They say no.
Who then? They won't say. They're concerned for that person's safety.
"A lot of people helped Rifqa," Blake Lorenz said.
Times news researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.
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