Parents of Muslim-turned-Christian teen back out of deal

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Parents of Muslim-turned-Christian teen back out of deal
Seek to have trial over daughter's flight from Shariah

Posted: February 01, 2010
6:44 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh

WND

Attorney Angela M. Lloyd listens to Rifqa Bary at Dec. 22 hearing (Photo: Columbus Dispatch

The parents of teenager Rifqa Bary, who fled from her family after abandoning Islam to become a Christian and warned authorities in Florida she might be killed because of her apostasy, are demanding permission to back out of an agreement they reached with child protective services in Ohio over her custody.

The move comes as a result of a decision by officials with the state agency assigned to protect the 17-year-old to allow her to have contact with Christians, according to reports.

"Children's Services is endangering the family's chance at reconciliation by allowing Rifqa to have contact with the people who helped her run away," the parents have submitted in a motion to the court.

The Christians the agency is allowing her to contact are Blake and Beverly Lorenz, who led a Christian church in Florida at the time Rifqa fled her home. But instead of "helping" her run away, they responded to the emergency needs of a teen who already had fled, according to a pastor who has monitored the case.

(Story continues below)

Jamal Jivanjee, director of the non-profit ministry Illuminate, told WND he met Bary before the current controversy over her conversion – which friends say took place four years ago – and is convinced the Sri Lanka native is a genuine Christian. He affirms Bary's claim that her life is threatened by her father, due to his religious beliefs and the Columbus, Ohio, mosque that pressured him to punish her in accord with Islamic law.

The court has barred the lawyers in the case from commenting in public.

As WND reported last month, Bary's parents had agreed to allow their daughter to remain in foster care until she turns 18 this summer.

Bary's Muslim parents gave up their fight, according to Ohio court documents, avoiding a trial that could have put Islam's law barring "apostasy," on penalty of death, in the national spotlight.

As WND reported, fearing harm to Islam's image in the U.S., the Council on American-Islamic Relations intervened in the case, appointing a lawyer who tried to portray Bary as a victim of brainwashing while moving to bar any mention in court of the religion's mandate to kill "apostates," according to Jivanjee, an Ohio pastor who himself is a former Muslim.

But now the parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, have submitted court documents withdrawing their consent to resolve the case.

"The parents now believe the entire deal should be thrown out because of misrepresentation and fraudulent inducement," said the court submission.

They now are demanding a trial on the dependency case.

Jivanjee explained the new development in an urgent e-mail to Rifqa's supporters.

"Since the deal was made with Rifqa's parents agreeing to temporary dependency, she was given permission to speak on the phone with Blake and Beverly Lorenz, the pastors in Florida who saved her life by taking her into their home when she fled. Rifqa's parents are objecting to this contact with the Lorenz family by their 17-year-old daughter. Do you know why? Because they feel that it interferes with the stated goal of the 'case plan' that they all agreed to."

He cited the court documents from the parents that their goal is their daughter's reconciliation.

"Rifqa's parents know that the goal of the 'case plan' is reunification, does Rifqa know that?" he wrote.

A hearing has been scheduled Feb. 16 to hear arguments from the parents' attorney.

Assignment of Rifqa's custody to the state is in her best interests, Jivanjee wrote, because it would allow her to remain away from a family she fears intends to destroy her because of her change of religion.

"Was the goal of this latest deal to give Rifqa permanent dependency until she turns 18? NO! (That is what Rifqa's supporters were led to believe, and is why we initially celebrated the deal that was made, but I have since discovered that is NOT what the stated goal actually was,)" Juvanjee wrote. "The STATED goal of this deal that Rifqa's own attorneys initiated was reunification with the parents that she fled from!

"This 'case plan' is horrendous and puts Rifqa in grave danger by pursuing reunification with her parents. It is absolutely unacceptable that Rifqa be forced to follow a 'case plan' that has a CLEAR & STATED goal of reunification with the very parents that threatened her life because of her faith in Jesus Christ," he wrote.

Jivanjee said the Council on American-Islamic Relations had appointed a lawyer, Omar Tarazi, to cast Bary as a victim of brainwashing by another Ohio pastor, Brian Williams, and the Florida pastors to whom she fled, Blake and Beverly Lorenz, while maneuvering to isolate and discourage her.

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Law enforcement officials conducted two investigations in which they concluded Rifqa would face no harm if she returned home. A foster court, nevertheless, place her in foster care until the case could be resolved. An Ohio judge ruled Dec. 22 her family could engage in a discussion with her about their religious beliefs, though not necessarily in person, and rescheduled a trial for Jan. 28 to determine her dependency.

The trial date was dropped from the calendar when, on Jan. 19, the purported agreement was confirmed.

Author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer and blogger Pamela Geller, close observers of the case, assert it is inescapably about the religious beliefs of Bary's parents and the local mosque that pressured them to abide by Islam's deadly intolerance for conversion.

Rifqa Bary has reported her father, Mohamed Bary, threatened her life after learning of her conversion. She says she became a Christian four years ago. When her parents began preparing to move the family back to Sri Lanka, she sought refuge with a Florida pastor and his wife after connecting with them on the social networking site Facebook.com. The Barys reported their daughter missing to Columbus, Ohio, police July 19, then tracked her down in Orlando.

Before her case was moved from Florida to Ohio, court documents linked a mosque near the family's home to allegations of terrorism financing.

While in Orlando, Rifqa explained her plight in an interview with WFTV.

"If I had stayed in Ohio, I wouldn't be alive," she said. "In 150 generations in [my] family, no one has known Jesus. I am the first – imagine the honor in killing me."

She explained there is "great honor in that, because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It's in the Quran."

Scholars in all the major streams of Islam have asserted the religion's holy book, the Quran, teaches that rejection of Islam must be punished by death.

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