DEARBORN — A total of four Christian evangelists who were reportedly attempting to convert patrons at Dearborn's Arab International Festival last week were arrested and jailed for disorderly conduct according to Dearborn Police.

Those arrested were Negeen Mayel of California, Nabeel Qureshi of Virginia, David Wood of New York, and Paul Rezkalla, a student at New York University.

The group is alleging that their free speech rights were violated after their video cameras, which were used to record various conversations at the festival, were confiscated by police. They are requesting the return of their cameras and tapes.

Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad told the Detroit Free Press that the missionaries were arrested in order to ensure security and to prevent festival patrons from being bothered.

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This ^^^^ was from the arabamericannews
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ANN ARBOR, MI - In what some have described as police enforcement of Sharia law at the annual Dearborn Arab International Festival, last Friday night Dearborn Police Officers arrested four Christian missionaries and illegally confiscated their video cameras which were recording the events surrounding their arrests. The Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today announced it is representing all of the Christian missionaries.


Arrested on charges of Breach of the Peace are: Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla, and David Wood. Mayel, an eighteen year old female, whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan and a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, was also charged with failure to obey a police officer's orders. She was approximately 100 feet away and videotaping a discussion with some Muslims when her camera was seized.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, "These Christian missionaries were exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus. It's apparent that these arrests were a retaliatory action over the embarrassing video of the strong arm tactics used last year by Festival Security Guards. This time, the first thing police officers did before making the arrests was to confiscate the video cameras in order to prevent a recording of what was actually happening."

Thompson continued, "Contrary to the comments made by Police Chief Ron Haddad, our Constitution does not allow police to ban the right of free speech just because there are some hecklers. Not all police officers approve of the way their department treated these Christians."

Robert Muise, Senior Trial Counsel with the Law Center in charge of the case, yesterday faxed a letter to Chief Haddad demanding that the three video cameras and tapes illegally seized from the missionaries be immediately returned.

The Law Center is also representing Pastor George Saeig who was prohibited by the Festival and Police authorities from distributing religious material at last year's festival. That case is ongoing.

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This ^^^^^^was from the rightside news
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Interesting that when I googled this these where the top 2 that came up. Not one article from ANY major news sites??? I know shocking...pfft

Wonder if the ACLU is on this as they were with the Skokie ILL Law suit?