Vol. 73/No. 8      March 2, 2009

Other signs railed against homosexuals and adulterers. Yet another warned against “baby killing women,” a reference to abortion.

According to Ramzy Kilic, executive director of the Council on American and Islamic Relations here, the group stood outside the fence surrounding the mosque. One spoke through a bullhorn while the others formed a line holding placards and banners. They were clad in T-shirts, jackets, and hats emblazoned with slogans attacking Islam and urging conversion to Christianity.

The rightists were all white, while the congregation was Arab and African American.

A video taken by opponents of the rightists records the group shouting over a bullhorn, “Let me tell you Mohammad was a liar, he was a pedophile, he was a murderer.” Another of them is heard taunting some worshipers, asking, “What about al-Arian?”

Sami al-Arian, a former computer science professor at the University of South Florida, was arrested in 2003 on frame-up conspiracy charges of supporting terrorism. Despite being found innocent by a federal jury in December 2005 al-Arian was returned to prison. He was finally released in early September 2008, but now faces contempt of court charges.  
 
 
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