Nearly 100 demonstrators rallied in front of the Islamic Center in Irving, Texas on Saturday to counter-protest last week’s small gathering who protested armed yet peacefully in front of the mosque. This weekend’s event was positioned as a “rally of love” to support the mosque.
Irving resident Tonya Cadenhead, a 31-year-old Starbucks barista, organized Saturday’s counter-protest. She “hastily” coordinated the counter-protest on Facebook, according to WFAA 8 (ABC) because the armed protest upset her. “It really hurt my feelings and made me angry,” she told the news outlet. “And I wanted to show Irving is a community of love and support for our brothers and sisters who live here.”
The Dallas Morning News described Cadenhead as wanting to show the world another side to her hometown, which the news outlet asserted made national news all year for “acts of hostility and suspicion” towards its Muslim population, although it dismissed the role that zero tolerance policies played in “Clock Boy” Ahmed Mohamed’s detention and omitted that Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne became the unfortunate recipient of multiple disturbing, sexually violent threats and remains under fire over the decision made by the Irving Independent School District and Irving police to detain Mohamed.
He is the 14-year-old boy who brought a makeshift clock that resembled a briefcase bomb into MacArthur High in mid-September and since accepted a fully-funded education scholarship from the Qatar Foundation, an organization with reputed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The family relocated to the Middle Eastern country and threatened to sue the Irving school district and city officials for $15 million.
Breitbart Texas’ Bob Price previously reported that David Wright III, who organized last week’s mosque protest, released names and addresses of dozens of names considered Muslim and Muslim sympathizers on Facebook. That list was not new and included the names of those who signed up for and against an Irving City Council March meeting which ended in a 5-4 resolution vote to support then House Bill 562, dubbed American Laws for American Courts. Despite the Irving City Council’s support, which Breitbart Texas reported; that bill never made it out of committee during the last legislative session.
WFAA 8 (ABC) pointed out that the Irving police told them that they were unaware of any complaints connected to the publishing of the list, which has been posted on the City’s website since March.
Meanwhile, the Dallas newspaper in its dewy-lens reporting described a man from Syria at the “rally of love” who “stood a few feet away in the parking lot, smiling at the spectacle” and chuckled: “I can’t speak English good.” He also said: “I am new in America.” According to the paper, he would have said more but a mosque official shooed the reporter away, claiming the Islamic Center sent out a news release inviting protesters but “its leaders were still on edge and had asked members not to talk to the media.”
However, Breitbart Texas reported on a revealing look into the Irving community when an open records request uncovered a letter from a Muslim ISD graduate and MacArthur High School 2015 valedictorian Amena Jamali. She portrayed the same school accused of Islamophobia by the Mohamed family as “a place where there is no or very little prejudice.”
Jamali’s letter to MacArthur’s principal Dan Cummings completely contradicted the Islamophobia narrative portrayed by mainstream media. Instead, she painted a picture of a community high school that changed her life, where she felt “respected as a Muslim,” that “accommodated Muslim prayer and dietary needs” and where “students of my religious community, including me, (are granted) two weeks every year to attend a religious ceremony.” She even wrote they let her take “a whole month of school off and go for Haj.”
On Sunday, Irving resident Marvin Randle told Breitbart Texas he drove by 2555 Esters Rd., the site of the Irving mosque at approximately 3 p.m. and said that it appeared peaceful but he only saw 15-20 protesters on the sidewalk as he passed by at 20 mph. He said many sang and the small group appeared to be predominantly 25 years-old and younger. Most were white and the females did not wear the traditional Islamic headdress, the hijab, which lead him to believe they were not Muslim.
Follow Merrill Hope on Twitter @OutOfTheBoxMom.
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