Community Corner

Dearborn Activist's Halal Chicken Lawsuit Gag Order Lifted

Lawyer Majed Moughni had been barred from commenting on a controversial decision regarding McDonald's and non-Halal chicken.

A Dearborn attorney is loving a Wayne County judge’s decision regarding a lawsuit against McDonald's.

Majed Moughni received good news from Judge Kathleen Macdonald, who reversed a decision she had made that prohibited Moughni from talking about a settlement reached between McDonald’s and attorneys over non-halal chicken served at a Dearborn fast-food restaurant, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.

Moughni was reprimanded by the court in February for starting discussion on the 4,821-member page about the lawsuit settlement, and ordered to take the discussions down.

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The judge’s earlier decision also had effectively shut down a Facebook page run by Moughni, a 42-year-old local activist.

But now the Facebook page—Dearborn Area Community Members—is back, including a post Monday that praised the judge’s reversal.

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“We are back!!!!” the post reads. “Thanks to Washington DC based civil rights attorney Paul Levy, Michigan ACLU attorney Michael Steinberg and Gross (sic) Pointe civil rights attorney William Burdett, our Freedom of Speech is alive and well in Dearborn, Michigan USA!!!! More to come!”

Fans of the page celebrated it as a win for freedom of speech.

"This page has been criticized a lot, but the fact that a Judge ordered a public page on Facebook shut down, not for inappropriate material, not for for hate, not for anything illegal, should be a wake up call for everyone," commented Amal Hammoud Berry. "There are so many other pages on Facebook that are disgusting-- hate filled pages, that are still up and running."


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