Quickie update on the ongoing saga of the Islamic Society of Boston lawsuits. Last week, the ISB approached the Workmen’s Circle (WC, a "progressive" Jewish organization dedicated to social justice) asking it to "file an amicus brief supporting its right to bring a defamation and civil rights lawsuit against the Boston Herald, FOX News, and the David Project, a Jewish advocacy organization, among others." Howard Cooper, ISB's attorney, was apparently invited to speak to the WC by its MidEast workgroup. Cooper asked the WC for an amicus brief, his request can be found here, at the Jewish Russian Telegraph.
On February 5th, about 200 people at the Workmen's Circle listened to Howard Cooper's talk. A report of the presentation can be found here. Cooper was followed by Jeffrey Robbins, attorney for The David Project, an account of that can be found here. An excerpt from the report on Robbins:
"This case is a fundamental case about freedom of speech, and about attempts of powerful forces with centers outside of the US to intimidate and pulverize its critics. The issue at stake, Robbins said, is the fundamental right of citizens to raise issue. A group of private citizens getting together, discussing an issue, and calling a press conference does not represent a conspiracy. It is an Orwellian inversion, said Robbins, to accuse people concerned about messages of hate coming from the circles around the ISB (of) hateful behavior. How can a statement about Saudi connection represent defamation when such connection is a fact that nobody denies, including the ISB with its most recent disclosure about the financing coming from the Islamic bank? How could questions raised in the media, and accusing the ISB in tight connections to Saudi circles hurt its fundraising -- when most of the money raised came from the Saudi Arabia? Jeffrey Robbins said to his audience -- being sued for raising questions is frightening experience, and is effective, already people are reluctant to speak out on the matter for the fear of being next target of bare knuckle attacks. This is plain ugly, said Robbins."
No doubt. Lawsuits can be quite effective at silencing criticism or even just questioning, even if the plaintiff ultimately loses. More from the Robbins presentation:
Question: Howard Cooper informed us that the deal between BRA and ISB within the format of Boston's Urban Renewal program is not an unusual deal. Cooper said to us that 17 organizations -- churches and synagogues got similar arrangements from the city.
Robbins: Please name one. We asked to identify at least one transactions like this and so far I did not hear from Howard about this. The number they used in the beginning was 19.
Jessica Masse, ISB's new spokesman, also mentioned the 17 organizations that had similar transactions from the City of Boston, in a Boston Globe op-ed. Yet no one has actually provided any details on these 17 organizations. I'm doubting that anybody else got $2 million dollars worth of property for $175K, or that a BRA director went overseas to raise funds for these other churches and synagogues. I'll try to get that info from the BRA.
In the end, the Workmen's Circle "decided not to decide" about filing an amicus brief. A tip o'the hat to Solomonia.
On a related note, a few Boston area radio stations (including 96.9 FM TALK's Eagan and Braude and WRKO 680 AM) are covering the ISB/BRA story, as noted at Michael Graham's blog, The Natural Truth.
As always, stay tuned!
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