Two commentators leading a conference in Dearborn this weekend–protesting what they say is evidence of honor killings in the Islamic faith–spoke out against Imam Sayed Qazwini in advance of the event on their respective blogs.
Citing video footage of the imam's Friday sermon to worshippers at the ICA, Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer call Qazwini "pro-honor killing."
"If the mainstream media narrative about Islam were true, this imam and others would be standing with us against Islamic honor killing," Spencer wrote in his blog, Jihad Watch.
Spencer and Gellar are heading up the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference, being held Sunday at the in Dearborn.
Mokdad, for whom the conference was named, was killed in 2011 in Warren, MI. Police arrested her stepfather, Rahim Alfetlawi, for the crime. Some–Gellar included–have speculated that the shooting was an "honor killing" due to her rejection of Islam.
Mokdad's family told Fox News Detroit that "absolutely it was not."
Alfetlawi is currently awaiting trial for the crime.
Qazwini will join a multitude of local and national religious and political leaders in meant to combat the Mokdad conference. That event will be Sunday at the Doubletree Hotel just outside of Dearborn.
Qazwini on Friday informed his congregants at the ICA of Gellar's impending visit to Dearborn, likening her to .
“There are people who use fear of Islam for their personal gains," Qazwini said. "Pamela Gellar … is another bigot who finds bashing Islam a convenient way to promote herself and make some money."
Gellar called Qazwini's comments about her "badmouthing."
"Here is a leading Muslim imam denouncing me, libeling me, defaming me because I am fighting for the human rights of Muslim girls," Gellar wrote in her blog, Atlas Shrugs, on Saturday. "We are turning people away from the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference and requests are still coming in fast and furious."
Gellar's conference will also include as a speaker Acts 17 Apologetics leader David Wood, who led a lawsuit against the city of Dearborn after being arrested at the Arab International Festival in 2010.
The Islamophobia Town Hall is to include such speakers as Arab American Institute President James Zogby, journalist and blogger Sara Posner, Executive Director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations of Michigan Dawud Walid, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Michigan Director Imad Hamad, Imam Qazwini and state Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
The town hall is free to attend and open to the public.
