The case on Fathima Rifqa Bary continues. This time, however, the case has taken an interesting turn. Just to make sure we are all on the same page, here is the summary of the case. So far, it has been an ideological battle between Ohio and Florida. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) conducted an investigation into Fathima, and wrote a seven page investigative summary on it. The report was provided by WFTV Eye-Witness News. The investigation suggests that there is no evidence or proof of any abuse having occurred; it goes on to state that Fathima's beliefs of an "honored killing" are influenced by her culture and customs, and FDLE found no factual grounds for these claims. One part of the report reads as follows.
I ran OCR on the report which was originally in a PDF embedded image. Since the report was scanned, parts of the report were handwritten and did not come out correctly. I have replaced these parts with [unintelligible] even though the missing parts may be deduced from the context. This is to avoid "guess-and-replace" and to keep me out of trouble.
[ Unintelligible ] discussed her upbringing and stated that she had been a cheerleader at New Albany High School. When asked if her father approved of her cheerleading she stated that her father had no real idea what the concept or activities involved in cheerleading were, and allowed it. She stated that she always wore sweatpants or other coverings to hide the short skirt of the cheerleading outfit from him. She stated her father had never been to an event in which she performed as a cheerleader. Furthermore, she stated the family had no photos of her cheering or team photos as would appear in a yearbook.
...
When FDLE and other investigators visited the household on August 27, 2009, several photos of dressed in her cheerleading uniform were prominently displayed in the family living room.
Two things could be going on here; either (1) she had a real reason to run away from home and is now, under the influence of her current environment, out to destroy her family; or (2) what happened was a spur of emotions and now she does not know how to handle the situation. Either way, the investigative report broke through her. The most recent report on Fathima as of this writing can be found at WFTV Eye-Witness News here.
In essence, the report indirectly states that Fathima's case is not immediately valid. The report claims that she has named noone besides her father who will conduct the so-called "honored killing" and even goes as far as to include an interview with CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations):
On August 27, 2009, [unintelligible] was asked if there was any Islamic punishment for
conversion from Islam to Christianity. [Unintelligible] answered "absolutely not" and "there is no such thing as honor killing." An attorney present at the time, Mr. Romin Iqbal, characterized the concept as cultural and tribal, not related directly to the Islamic religious practice.
So finally someone is stepping up and saying "hey, she could have been set up." Indeed, the investigation was not even started by Muslims. I'm amazed that non-Muslim investigators--who were not motivated by religious bias have written this report. Thank you CAIR for stepping in as well.
The report also found no evidence of the child abuse Fathima talks about. The lie about the pictures of her cheerleading is what really brought her credibility down. If any of you wish to add to this, just leave a comment. I was not able to touch on everything here (and I do not always find everything as proven by an excellent comment on my last post) so feel free to add to this summary.
One thing of note is that her father did admit to picking up her laptop; but he did not strike her with it as Fathima claimed he did. The report claims that her father was about to throw the laptop but then decided against it because it was expensive. In addition, Fathima's original story of hitch-hiking a ride to the bus station was proven false. As it turns out, Brian Williams--the one who Baptized her--drove her to the station from a residence. In other words, she was not out on the street.
On August 31, 2009,
FDLE's investigation has revealed that the ticket was purchased in
Orlando under a fictitious name and provided to [unintelligible] During her interview, [unintelligible] acknowledged that it was her signature on the ticket. FDLE has maintained a copy of this ticket for this case file.
So they interviewed her, and then gave her a ticket to Orlando. Why is she so excited in the video? As one of the authors posted in the comments to the previous entry, "A pastor was filming a 16-year-old girl in her bedroom... I find that very suspicious. If her parents were so strict, how did she sneak a grown man into her room to film her?" I agree, it looks very suspicious, and I think law enforcement is seeing that as well.
For my visually impaired readers (or whoever does not wish to download the PDF version of the report,) you can get the rich text version here. Please note that this is the exact report contained in the PDF image, with no alterations of any kind. The document has not been edited for scanning errors or layout. The document is provided "as is" with no modification except that it has been converted to text. The rich text format was used to preserve all formatting as found in the original report. I make no warrant of any kind concerning this document, and do not claim a copyright on it; the document is only here for those of you who cannot read the original image. I disclaim all misinformation caused by any optical character recognition errors, missing parts, poor formatting, unrecognizable text, etc. Use at your own risk. If you are concerned about downloading the converted version, you may obtain the original version from WFTV. The original document just linked is provided by Eye-Witness News and written by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. All copyrights remain with them.
Ma'a Sallamah,
Munawar
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