New Hampshire: Investigator charges mosque with “extremism,” police chief charges investigator with “Islamophobia”
( Muslims do not assimilate! They infiltrate!)
This Union Leader article is a particularly noxious example of how law enforcement authorities and the establishment media treat charges that a mosque may be teaching jihad and Islamic supremacism. As always, instead of investigating the charges and reporting on them accurately, they shoot the messenger.
“On a scale of 1 -10, with 10 being the most extreme, I rate this mosque a 10,” wrote David Gaubatz, who says he travels extensively investigating mosques. He says he visited Manchester’s Islamic center on June 30.
ISNH Chairman Mohammed Ewiess said these unsubstantiated charges are “full of lies” and have spread distrust of his community.
The Union Leader offers no details of why Gaubatz gave the mosque this rating. All it tells us is that the mosque chairman said these “unsubstantiated charges” (what were the charges?) were “full of lies” and that he claimed victim status (why? Have racist, redneck yahoos targeted his community? Probably not).
The Union Leader doesn’t bother to mention, and probably didn’t bother to find out, that four separate studies since 1999 all found that 80% of U.S. mosques were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians. There are no countervailing studies that challenge these results. In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi Muslim leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the “extremist ideology.” Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom’s 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.
In the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don’t teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism. Specifically: “A random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S. was conducted to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers. Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshiper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.” That means that around 1,700 mosques in the U.S. are preaching hatred of infidels and justifying violence against them.
None of that is in the Union Leader article. All we get is this:
Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard said his detective embedded in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has no information that corroborates Gaubatz’s claims.
“What he wrote in this piece of paper is slanderous. I do not believe the mosque is a hotbed for terrorism. I don’t trust this gentleman’s research. I think he is trying to sell a book,” Willard said.
“I think the guy is a crackpot and I don’t believe we have those issues in this city.”
So Willard invokes the FBI’s JTTF. He doesn’t mention, and probably doesn’t know, that the FBI is forbidden to study anything involving Islam in connection with terrorism, and so it wouldn’t know the danger signs to look for in a mosque even if those danger signs stabbed them with a four-foot sword while screaming “Allahu akbar.” Willard offers an argument from authority, the weakest of all arguments, in invoking the JTTF, without establishing that the JTTF is competent in this area. He then offers an ad hominem attack on Gaubatz, asserting (with what evidence?) that Gaubatz is just trying to sell a book and is a “crackpot.” This is a classic example of “‘Shut up!,’ he explained,” and lends credence to Gaubatz’s claims: clearly the Manchester Police Department doesn’t even want to consider the possibility that there may be problems with this mosque. So if there really are, what then?
At the last Manchester Board of Aldermen meeting, when former Ward 2 Republican State Rep. Greg Salts brought Gaubatz’s report to their attention, several rose in protest of it.
“Personally this hate talk has no place in this city, that’s just my opinion,” said Alderman Chairman Patrick Long.
Alderman-at-Large Dan O’Neil said having this read aloud gave it too much legitimacy.
“There is no need in the city of Manchester for hatred,” O’Neil said. “I know this board won’t stand for it; our citizens won’t stand for it.”
Long and O’Neil ought to be ashamed of themselves, if they still have that capacity, and ought to be voted out of office at the earliest possible opportunity. It is not “hatred” to raise legitimate concerns about what is taught in mosques, given the survey information above, as well as the fact that 80% of mosques in the U.S. are Saudi-funded, and the reality of Islam’s teachings on jihad, the rights of women, Jews, etc. To smear Gaubatz as spreading hate without any investigation of his specific assertions about the mosque is to do what they claim he is doing.
“He stokes the flames of fear, but he does so through hatred, bigotry and intolerance,” Willard said of Gaubatz.
“His islamophobia has no place in our country and certainly no place in the fine city of Manchester that embraces diversity of all levels to include freedom of religion.”
“Islamophobia” is a propaganda term designed to intimidate people into fearing to oppose jihad terror. Willard’s statement here is a classic example of how it works. What if Gaubatz’s claims about the mosque are true, and this is the response he is getting? In the future, people will be afraid to speak up about what they may see going on in mosques, for fear of incurring charges of “hatred” and “Islamophobia.”
But Chief Willard needs to be put on notice: if Gaubatz’s charges are true, and you waved them away just by defaming him, then when it becomes clear that he was right, the responsibility for the devastation in Manchester will be on your head.
“N.H. mosque defended after extremism claim,” by Kevin Landrigan, New Hampshire Union Leader, August 26, 2017:
MANCHESTER – Inside the second floor of a nondescript, office space in a South Willow Street strip mall here, 300 men of diverse cultures and one faith stand, squat and kneel in unison Friday afternoon while their religious leader counsels the flock of the Islamic Society of New Hampshire.
“The way we do it is with action and kindness, promoting goodness and love,” said Imam Sherif Shabaka.
“We have to show ourselves; let our neighbors know they are safe around us.”
But one author, who claims to have a dossier about this holy place maintains the temporary mosque is anything but a safe haven and his explosive report touched off plenty of push back from many quarters in Manchester.
“On a scale of 1 -10, with 10 being the most extreme, I rate this mosque a 10,” wrote David Gaubatz, who says he travels extensively investigating mosques. He says he visited Manchester’s Islamic center on June 30.
ISNH Chairman Mohammed Ewiess said these unsubstantiated charges are “full of lies” and have spread distrust of his community.
“When people insist and go the extra mile to harm you in this sneaky way, why do I have to defend myself when all I do is come and pray, I pay taxes, I am a good businessman,” Ewiess said.
Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard said his detective embedded in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has no information that corroborates Gaubatz’s claims.
“What he wrote in this piece of paper is slanderous. I do not believe the mosque is a hotbed for terrorism. I don’t trust this gentleman’s research. I think he is trying to sell a book,” Willard said.
“I think the guy is a crackpot and I don’t believe we have those issues in this city.”
‘Hate talk has no place’
Gaubatz is the author of “Muslim Mafia,” an undercover story in 2009 about the Council on Islamic Relations that ended up in a protracted lawsuit and a judge’s order that he turn back over to the court thousands of documents he had obtained.
During a telephone interview, Gaubatz said he’s worked in the Middle East since 1978, has visited more than 280 mosques here and that many of those mosques get a 1 or 2 rating from him.
He also claimed Manchester’s mosque is more extreme than others.
At the last Manchester Board of Aldermen meeting, when former Ward 2 Republican State Rep. Greg Salts brought Gaubatz’s report to their attention, several rose in protest of it.
“Personally this hate talk has no place in this city, that’s just my opinion,” said Alderman Chairman Patrick Long.
Alderman-at-Large Dan O’Neil said having this read aloud gave it too much legitimacy.
“There is no need in the city of Manchester for hatred,” O’Neil said. “I know this board won’t stand for it; our citizens won’t stand for it.”
Gaubatz said he’s not surprised Manchester police and others would reject his work.
“I get that same reaction a lot of the time. They don’t want to admit they have a problem in their area and it took an outsider to find it and identify it,” Gaubatz said.
ISNH President Ewiess questions if Gaubatz ever really came here.
“I do not think this guy physically visited our mosque. We are always there, the imam is there, the board members go there daily. I do not know when he went or how or who he spoke to if he did,” Ewiess said….
Chief Willard agreed these attacks must be answered.
“He stokes the flames of fear, but he does so through hatred, bigotry and intolerance,” Willard said of Gaubatz.
“His islamophobia has no place in our country and certainly no place in the fine city of Manchester that embraces diversity of all levels to include freedom of religion.”
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