The other “Islamic leaders” were last seen(I think on the front page of the local Detroit Free
Press)hangin’ out with other “leaders” .I particularly was embarrassed by the Jewish “leader” who was really into condemning “Koran descecration”.After ongoing homicide/suicide bombings,beheadings,etc.,this has been justified because Muslims are “more religious” than other people;based on their behavior,I am more concerned with grafitti,anywhere.

jaywilton on June 23, 2005 at 6:33 pm

Debbie,
This is one of the best columns I’ve seen from you! In defending this poor girl from a Muslim family it goes a long way to showing those morons who think you simply have some sort of “racist” bug against Arabs, Muslims, etc. without basis how untrue that is.
How these radicals treat their own sisters/daughters/wives etc. goes a far longer (and much more accurate) way to describing the mentality of how they can allow and cheer on the cold-blooded murders of 9/11 innocents, etc. than those bogus theories about “U.S. economic policies” or “Israeli discriminatory policies”.
Ironically (and more proof that none of this is “racist” at all), if this family lived in Israel and the girl ran away from her family to the hands of the local police (or in the territories and fled to the local IDF barracks) they and the courts would do all they could to protect and defend her while if she lived in an Islamic country the government would more than likely “finish the job” and execute her.
As a father of a 2 year old girl I found this extremely despicable and almost threw up reading it! Good job!

hairymon on June 25, 2005 at 3:05 pm

You guys,
This whole thing started with a teacher reporting that she thinks I was being abused at home because I broke my back. Its known in my school that I’m Muslim and a lot of people in the school know that its against my religion to date a guy thats not Muslim. Being that my best friend is Catholic, assumptions were made and rumors flew all over the school and later I find out that supposably he’s the cause of all this. A couple hours later I get called down to the principle’s office and social services is there with the report and I get taken away.
The night of when I broke my back, I was running downstairs to the basement. Obviously not paying attention I missed a couple steps and took the rest of the stairs down to our lovely cement floor. My brother and my mom came downstairs to my crying. Seeing that my back wasn’t swollen nor did it have any bruises, they assumed there was nothing wrong and that I would just walk it off the next day. They helped me up and we walked to my brother’s room which is downstairs and thats where I slept with my mom by my side. The next morning I realized I couldn’t get up. I told my mom and dad to call the ambulance and they did. The doctor said it was nothing more then a chipped vertrabrae and that the only reason why I’m in so much pain was because I had a lot of muscle and tissue that was torn. End of story. I ended up going back home and and started going to school again but with a walker.
After having one person say the story to another, words changed and soon enough I find out I was being beaten up by my brother and it was because of my best friend who all of a sudden I was dating and that I was going to be taken away from my family and home. I ended up being placed in a shelter where I could honestly call it a jail. It was absolute hell and I don’t think it helped that I was injured and had to use a walker to get everywhere. Realizing that I had to take care of myself I started teaching myself how to walk without the walker and sleep the right way. I didn’t see a doctor for 7 weeks when I was supposed to see him the day after I was taken away. I had physical therapy appointments scheduled by my parents that I was supposed to go to but I completely neglected by THE STATE not my parents. In the shelter, I had no contact to anyone and if I requested to talk to a case worker or anything, I would have to wait DAYS. I met kids in there that had shocking stories. Stories that if you heard you wouldn’t even allow your kid to go outside the house but never were those stories published all over the place because they were not Muslim or Arabic families therefore the story wasn’t as appealing to society.
Later on I get placed in a home that was 40 miles away from where I lived based on the assumption that my parents are physco and that they would be after me. I was offered many homes close to the area by licenced foster parents so I can at least finish my last week of school there but the state refused. Ask yourself, why would they make an assumption only with me that my parents would be after me and that they would be mad? It had to have something to do with the fact that we’re a Muslim and Egyptian family.
Then comes June 22nd, the day before court and I get a phone call from one of my friends telling me that she just saw my house on TV. I turn it on and what do you know? Its everywhere. Channel 7, Fox News, Detroit Free Press, you name it. It was the most heart breaking thing to watch and hear. I promised myself that as soon as I get access to all of this stuff that I would fix it and try to make people understand the real truth. As you can see, I do search the internet for discussions like this so I can have people understand. I’m also trying to get in contact with the Detroit Free Press, Fox, and Channel 7 news.
You guys wanted the facts and there it is for ya but I hope you know that although this might seem like just another article and just another discussion, to me its my life and I have to deal with this stuff on a daily basis. It hurts to see people being close minded about the situation and believe everything they see on TV. I hope I made some kind of difference explaining to you what happened.
By the way, I was offered many times by many people to speak to them one on one but my family did not do anything to me therefore I am not afraid to speak my mind in front of anyone.
After reading all that you might even think that I’m forced to write all this by the Islamic community or something but I’m not. Thats not how the Islamic religion is at all and its totally misunderstood. You quoted when Robert Zivian said that my parents “condoned the punishment”. I hope you know that he said that in the June 22nd article and 2 days later in the June 24th article he was quoted saying, “There is no allegation that they condoned the beating.”
Change of opinion now?

ng93089 on July 14, 2005 at 5:10 pm

ng93089,
Since no one else has responded to you and this was one of the articles where I strongly agreed with Debbie, I will put in my thoughts as best I can.
If what you are saying is true, then yes, my opinion has changed and I feel sorry for what happened to you and hope that you are reunited with your family and that they are not unfairly punished and singled out.
But I do hope that what you are saying is true and that it is not you are not being pressured by your family or your community. Unfortunately, I live 600 miles from Michigan and the only place I have heard about this story is here and I went based on what I read.
It is really hard for me to tell which story is true, sadly. The TV show Judging Amy on CBS had an episode about a somewhat similar case in the fictional Connecticut court of the show; but in this case the kid lied about how he broke his legs and it really was because of his father beating him because he wanted to date (and for that matter to date a very “white” looking non-Muslim woman which aroused the ire of his parents). Amy Brenneman and Barbara Hall, who wrote and produced the show (and Amy B. of course starred in it), are not people who in terms of their political beliefs (at least from what I’ve read in articles) would automatically assume as Debbie and the Detroit media did, yet they wrote an episode about a case that turns out to really be a teen covering up what his family did.
Also, I’m not sure you’re even “that girl”. There are lots of people on the Internet who lack a life who see an article like this and to make a point (or just out of sheer boredom) will pretend they are the victim and say this stuff so how do I know your not just some (probably) guy making this up for kicks?
So in that sense while I understand what you are saying, I understand why Debbie would say what she did as well; I honestly think she was trying to help you and if you are covering such a thing up, I think she’s still trying to help you and hope it helps you find peace.
On the other hand, if what you are saying is true, hopefully it does make people think and allow for cooler heads to not let things like this get to the mania that it does and cause you and your family all the undue pain that it has.

hairymon on August 2, 2005 at 10:30 pm

Debbie,
Is that what it’s come to. That people criticize other peoples religion without any basis. You did neither make any attempt to find out the truth, just went with what the media says, which we all know to be completely truthful. Nor did you bother to do ANY investigation about Islam yourself.
Yes there are Muslims who do stupid things, the same statement applies to christians, jews, hindus, budhists and atheists and whatever other monthesitic or polytheistic religions are out there. But for some reason whenever a muslim commits a crime, people always associate the crime with the religion.
When James Earl Ray assassinated Kennedy, did we all say “James Earl Ray, the Christian born man murdered John F. Kennedy in cold blood on behalf of christianity.” Or when the Christian born men make these cults causing hundreds of people to take their own lives because he has brainwashed them into believing he is a prophet do we say that this is a christian belief? No, we do not. Because we believe Christianity is one of the original three monotheistic faiths sent down by God and we know what true Christianity is supposed to be like therefore we do not criticize your religion based on its people. I take extreme offense to your ignorant calling of that article “Honor-Beating” and “religion of peace strikes again” If you truly want to get into a count of which religion commits more crimes in America, we can get into that any day of the week. There is a car stolen every 5 seconds in America, a murder every 2 minutes, a rape every 5 minutes and I’m almost positive that the vast majority of them are not committed by Muslims. It would be too depressing to Americans to see every 5 minutes on the hour a news heading on TV, “Another Christian rapes a young girl!” wouldn’t it? And I truly believe in all sincerity that you really don’t want all of America to know how almost 5% of your priests have molested children do you (oh and that is reported cases only)? That would really help the spread of christianity wouldn’t it? If newly converted families were to realize that their son/daughter has a 5% chance of being molested in their own church I think they would think twice! It really amazes me how LITTLE publicity that received because it happened in the churches. God forbid that was to happen in ONE mosque, it would be all over the world before the leader could pull his pants up.
Like the young lady said in her response, she was in a foster place with many other young ladies and men and they were in for reasons ten times worse than hers, but of course we never saw those on the media.
Thank you for your time
rmorsy

rmorsy on February 9, 2006 at 10:37 am