Rifqa Bary Latest Updates: No credible reports of threats toward Rifqa, FDLE says

Amy L. Edwards and Rene Stutzman

Sentinel Staff Writers


7:49 p.m. EDT, September 14, 2009



In an investigative report unsealed today, FDLE did not discover any threats toward Rifqa Bary or her family in Ohio.

Although officials in two states have yet to prove it, Fathima Rifqa Bary told investigators she would become the victim of an "honor killing" because of her conversion to Christianity.



The Ohio teen had planned locations thousands of miles away from her home -- known as "fire drills" -- where she could seek refuge. Orlando was her "primary planned sanctuary," and that's exactly where Rifqa ended up in July.


Those were among the details of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report that said investigators found no credible reports of threats toward the 17-year-old runaway. The report was unsealed Monday. Rifqa's taped interview with investigators remains sealed.


" . . . FDLE's inquiry to date has failed to reveal any evidence of a conspiracy to commit, solicitation to commit, attempt or other efforts to commit any such action or other violence against her," the report said.


FDLE's seven-page investigative summary includes interviews with Ohio school officials; with Rifqa's father, who has denied threatening his daughter; and with Brian M. Williams, a 23-year-old with ties to Columbus and Kansas City, Mo.




Williams baptized Rifqa and helped her get to Florida, according to the report.


The Islamic community was not investigated. Investigators checked with local, state and federal authorities in Columbus and Orlando and "have not been made aware of any identifiable threat."


Rifqa made international headlines after she ran away from her home near Columbus, Ohio, in mid-July, took a Greyhound bus to Florida and sought shelter with an Orlando family.


Rifqa, 17, has said she left Ohio because she feared she would be hurt or killed by her Muslim family because she converted to Christianity. She stayed with longtime Central Florida pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz for more than two weeks before a judge placed her in state foster care, where she remains.


Other than her father, Rifqa did not identify anyone who have verbally or physically threatened her with death, the report said.



Also in the report:


-- Rifqa told investigators she had been abused by her father throughout her childhood, but her parents and older brother denied such allegations or using any harsh punishment. An Ohio school official told investigators the district had no records of alleged abuse.


-- Rifqa told investigators a high school teacher offered to let her stay at her house if Rifqa "needed to escape repercussions from her family due to her Christian religious beliefs." Investigators questioned the teacher, Debbie Crump, who told them she wasn't aware of any danger toward Rifqa. The teacher said she made the offer to Rifqa because her brother was having parties at the house when the Barys were out of town and the teacher was concerned for Rifqa's safety in that environment.


-- Rifqa may not have hitchhiked to a bus station on July 20. That's what she told investigators, but Williams told them he picked her up from a residence and drove her to the station. Rifqa's bus ticket was purchased in Orlando under a fictitious name. The report does not say who purchased it.


Reached recently by the Sentinel, Williams said he couldn't talk because he was already overextended on his cell phone minutes. Williams has not responded to multiple e-mails, Internet or telephone messages seeking comment.


Meanwhile, the Lorenzes' spiritual journey has taken a new path in Orlando.



A schism in their evangelical congregation, Global Revolution Church, led to them being banned from meeting in the movie theater that had been the church home. They abandoned -- voluntarily, they said -- the church name.


On Sunday, the Lorenzes and about 60 adults worshiped in an unair-conditioned warehouse in south Orange County. One of their music leaders set her keyboard atop a sawhorse. An audio-visual team propped a projector on a 10-foot ladder, secured by a piece of wood and a C-clamp.


Still, the Lorenzes preached, and the congregation prayed, sang and praised Jesus together.


Amy L. Edwards can be reached at aledwards@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5735. Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-650-6394.


Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Her Personal Writings Show She Wanted to be a Prophet

Fathima Rifqa Bary Update: Her Personal Writings Show She Wanted to be a Prophet


Posted on 17 September 2009 by Cobbler


Fathima Rifqa Bary


This case gets stranger by the day as more and more is revealed about the facts surrounding what actually happened.


Fathima Rifqa Bary claimed under the arm of an Evangelical pastor that her father wanted to kill her; according to new reports, it is now clear that she also secretly fancied herself as a prophet a la Esther in the Bible. Now as kooky as this seems to most of us, in this country we have religious freedom as well as freedom of expression. Rifqa is welcome to join the long line of self-declared prophets that routinely pop up in this country, and we have a right to dismiss her as a brainwashed zealot. But when as a consequence of her new found zeal, she accuses, or is manipulated into accusing, another person of physically harming her and threatening her life then it becomes a matter of public concern and a matter for the realm of law and order. As has been pointed out before, in both of those realms, Rifqa’s claims have been not been found to hold water.


Interestingly, all the bloggers who have been in a frenzy over this case, attempting to prove Islam evil, and her family as medieval monsters by manipulating Rifqa into their coveted poster girl for “victim of Islam” have been discredited as they have had to turn to blatant lies to cover up their shameful attempt to destroy a family, but more on that later. Now, they have the extra egg on their face having to explain their enlightened convert’s outrageous claims of prophethood.


(We at LW think that Rifqa should not be demonized, glorified, apostasized, or prophecized — we think she is just another deeply troubled teen in sore need of professional help and hope she gets it. Shame on the Florida wackos and the Spencers and the Gellers who are exploiting her predicament for their own apocalyptic gutter causes.)

Fathima Rifqa Bary: Rifqa’s Personal Writings Indicate She Wants to be a Prophet


By Rene Stutzman and Amy L. Edwards


A Muslim girl who gave her heart to Jesus and then ran away to Christian evangelists in Orlando is not just any Christian. She is driven to save souls and prays that God will make her a prophet.


That’s according to writings she left behind when she fled.


“Lord is preparing me and He has me hidden … until the time is right,” Fathima Rifqa Bary wrote in a computer entry obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. “I am called to the nations. Send me to the deepest darkest places into the pagan land.”


Rifqa, 17, lives with a foster family in the Orlando area. She fled here, she insists, because her father threatened to kill her for abandoning Islam.


There’s no evidence of that, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and child-welfare officials in Columbus, but her claim and her wrenching, tearful YouTube video have prompted a firestorm of response. Thousands of people have weighed in, most insisting that if Florida officials send her back to Ohio, she’ll face certain death.


After Rifqa disappeared July 19, family members searched for clues about why she left. They found a computer flash drive and were stunned by what they read.


Contents of the flash drive were given by her father, Mohamed Bary, to the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Columbus, which shared parts of it with the Sentinel. Bary authorized publication.


Facebook preaching


The writings reveal a young woman who has embraced fundamentalist Christianity, who has stood outside an abortion clinic, duct tape across her mouth, alongside other protesters, and who has dreamed about Armageddon.


She must convert her family to Christianity, she wrote, including her older brother, Rilvan, 18, who worships “demonic music.” She must approach strangers and talk about Jesus. She saved a list of tips on how to do that:


“Do NOT be sneaky,” she wrote. “Sit down … get to know them … [Ask] would you mind for 5min if I share the gospel with you.”


She compared herself to the Old Testament heroine Esther and wrote out or saved religious pep talks.


“What does it take to be a prophet?” she wrote. “If I am a friend of God I can be prophetic. … You have to want it. Everyday pray for prophesy.”


Also on the flash drive are 250 pages of Facebook preaching and blogging by a young Columbus evangelist, Brian Michael Williams, 23, a former Ohio State University sociology student and Rifqa’s religious mentor, according to Bary.


Those are the writings Bary said troubled him most.


Williams prays with people by “laying my hands on the [computer] monitor and prophesying,” Williams wrote. He calls Planned Parenthood’s founder a racist Nazi, does not believe in evolution, speaks in tongues and criticizes mainstream Christians as following a “demonic doctrine” for being spiritually lethargic and failing to evangelize.


Williams baptized Rifqa in a creek near her home in June, he said, and helped her run away — unwittingly, he insists — by driving her to the Greyhound bus station in downtown Columbus.


To Rifqa’s father, Williams is a Christian extremist who turned Rifqa against her family and put lies in her head.


‘An inspiration to me’


Williams said that’s not true. Rifqa, he said, is the one who convinced him that because her father was a Muslim, Bary must kill her to preserve the family’s honor.


“I really appreciate Rifqa’s courage, and she’s been an inspiration to me,” Williams said in a phone interview.


Rifqa’s attorney, John Stemberger, and her guardian ad litem, Krista Bartholomew, were prohibited from commenting on the writings because of a gag order issued by Orange Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson.


In the past week, Rifqa’s parents have launched a new strategy to get their daughter returned to Ohio and placed in its foster-care system. There are now two juvenile-court cases pending in Columbus. Last week, her father filed one, asking a judge to declare his daughter incorrigible for repeatedly being disobedient.


Someone else on Monday filed a separate petition naming Rifqa, something that could give a Franklin County judge the authority to determine where and with whom she lives. The Franklin County, Ohio, Clerk of Courts Office would not identify the petitioner.


Amy L. Edwards of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Rene Stutzman can be reached at 407-650-6394 or rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com.


Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

1 Comments For This Post


James Says:


September 18th, 2009 at 7:58 pm


“We at LW think that Rifqa should not be demonized, glorified, apostasized, or prophecized — we think she is just another deeply troubled teen in sore need of professional help and hope she gets it. Shame on the Florida wackos and the Spencers and the Gellers who are exploiting her predicament for their own apocalyptic gutter causes”

I wholeheartedly agree and I hope everyone goes easy on her. The teenage years are tough. I hope she gets the help she needs. Shame on people who jumped to conclusions on a complicated story for their own polemical purposes.

Courtesy: http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/09/fathima-rifqa-bary-update-her-personal-writings-show-she-wanted-to-be-a-prophet/

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:

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.

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."

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.

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.

...

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.

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."