Gates of Vienna: Did Christian Action Network Defame the Muslims of America?
Long-time readers are familiar with Jamaat ul-Fuqra, an organization that was listed as a domestic terror group by the State Department. Its name means “Community of the Impoverished”; it is also known as “Muslims of America”, and sometimes calls itself “Muslims of the Americas”, since it claims franchises in Canada and the Caribbean. It was founded by a known terrorist, a Pakistani Sufi named Sheikh Mubarik Ali Hasmi Shah Gilani. Over the past thirty years it has established a network of dozens of rural training compounds across the United States and Canada. It recruits new members primarily by proselytizing in the prison system.
Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network published a book last fall about JuF entitled Twilight in America: the Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps in America. He seems to have touched a nerve, because now the Muslims of America are filing a federal defamation lawsuit against Marty and CAN.
Before we get into the news story itself, here’s a promotional video about Marty’s book with footage of Jamaat ul-Fuqra:
The Courthouse News Service has the story of MOA’s lawsuit:
Muslims Claim Christian Group Defamed Them
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (CN) – The Muslims of America asked a federal judge to silence and punish the Christian Action Network and its founder, who allegedly defamed the group as terrorists, and their close-knit communities as Islamic training camps.
The Muslims of America Inc. sued Martin Mawyer and his Christian Action Network in Federal Court. It also sued Patti Pierucci, whom it describes as a ghostwriter and co-author with Mawyer of the book “Twilight in America: the Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps in America.”
The group claims that the “provocative and defamatory statements” were made in the book, and “uttered by Mawyer on various media outlets including Fox News (October 2012) and posted on CAN’s website”.
Muslims of America claims the defendants’ libels and defamation “have served to cause fear and hatred to flourish against plaintiff while inciting violence and putting the lives of plaintiff’s members in danger for the purpose of monetary enrichment.”
The Muslims of America demands retractions and a gag order against further defamation. It also wants sales of the book “Twilight in America” enjoined.
The book was published in October 2012.
“Defendants repeatedly refer to plaintiff as a terrorist organization engaging in terrorist acts and running terrorist training camps in the United States,” the complaint states. “Defendants bolster their claims through the use of intentionally misleading documents and sources in order to deceive and mislead the public about plaintiff. … In committing the acts herein alleged, the defendants acted willfully with malice in conscious disregard of the plaintiff’s rights and with intent to cause injury to plaintiff.”
Mawyer, who founded the nonprofit Christian Action Network in 1990, once worked as editor-in-chief of the Moral Majority Report, published by the evangelical fundamentalist Rev. Jerry Falwell, according to CAN’s website.
Based in Lynchburg, Va., CAN describes itself as a public advocacy and education organization “based on biblical principles, values, traditions and American ideals.” The website says it uses documentaries, radio and TV interviews, books and alliances with other organizations “to impact change.”
The lawsuit claims that Mawyer has appeared on the Fox News shows “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity” as well “Entertainment Tonight” and NBC’s “Today” show, where “he continues spreading various sensational, erroneous theories and presents them as fact.”
The group claims that Mawyer and CAN have spent the past decade “waging excessive divisive and intolerable attacks against the plaintiff.”
I researched Jamaat ul-Fuqra extensively in the early years of this blog (see the archive for more information), and nothing that I’ve seen written by Marty is inaccurate. If anything, he sometimes understates his case — presumably out of fear of lawsuits exactly like this one.
The CAN sales page for the book has this summary:
In late 2010 Martin Mawyer was in the midst of writing his new book, Twilight in America: The Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps Inside America. The book, exposing the existence of dozens of terrorist training camps inside America, was the result of years of research. One day, unexpectedly, there was a phone call that would wind up as the centerpiece of the book.
The caller was a young Egyptian man name Ali Aziz. He claimed to be an undercover agent with the NYPD who had lived for eight years with these terrorists in training. Mawyer knew, given the nature of the group that ran these compounds, that it could be a trap.
The group is known as Muslims of the Americas (MOA), and Mawyer and Christian Action Network were already in their crosshairs. MOA is a front group for a known terrorist group called Jamaat Al Fuqra (“community of the impoverished”). They have been convicted of numerous terrorist-related crimes in the United States going back to the 1980s, among them welfare fraud, white-collar crimes, gun running, firebombing, drug crimes, weapons crimes…and murder.
Ali told Mawyer that he knew about his work exposing the camps, and that he wanted to tell his story. Ali wanted to end his eight-year-long double life—as an undercover informant for the NYPD pretending to be an Islamic radical. Ali’s story checked out, and is revealed for the first time ever in Twilight in America.
“It’s very simple,” Ali told Mawyer. “MOA is asleep. They are asleep. They are a bomb.”
Twilight in America includes Ali’s shocking story, and the stern warning he gives to America: Time is running short; Muslims of the Americas has created a secret army of guerilla-trained jihadists, ready to strike at the heart of America “at one word” from their leader.
You’ll learn the history of MOA in the United States…how they began buying land in rural America decades ago to hide their terrorist training activities…how their leader, Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani, rules his American followers with an iron fist from Pakistan, with fantastical claims that he is omnipresent and watches their every move…how the Beltway Snipers were given refuge at MOA camps during their reign of terror in 2002…and how even today, these Islamic camps engage in illegal activity, including forced polygamous marriages, brutality against women and children, stockpiling illegal weapons, welfare fraud, and much more.
You’ll also read the incredible and tragic story of Wall street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who—while on his way to interview Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan—was kidnapped, beheaded and dismembered. Martin Mawyer’s research has uncovered never-before-revealed links between the murder of Daniel Pearl and the infamous Sheikh Gilani.
Undercover agent Ali insists that he has given law enforcement more than enough evidence to shut down these camps, but they have failed to take action. This is the decline that America is experiencing…this is Twilight in America.
The way to make this lawsuit backfire on the Muslims of America is to publicize it, publicize it, and publicize it. Write about it on your blogs and websites. Include a link to the book page. Help people learn about all the diligent research on JuF done by Marty, CP, and all the other people who spent time digging into it.
Let’s shine a bright light into this dark corner of rural America.
Hat tip: Vlad Tepes.
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