Some more information about the arrest last night of Nabeel Qureshi and David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics ministry at the Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan.

Due to their experience last year at the Arab Festival, Nabeel and David (along with two of their friends, Negeen and Paul Rezkalla) were very careful and thoughtful about their behavior and activities this year—not speaking to anyone unless approached, not carrying any Christian pamphlets, walking away the moment anyone asked them to stop talking to them, refusing to comment about Islam, etc. And, of course, they filmed their entire experience on multiple cameras, in order to ensure that no lies would be able to survive scrutiny.

And “lies” is precisely the reason they were arrested, according to Nabeel, who said the police told them they were being arrested for “breaching the peace.” From what Nabeel was able to gather, one of the festival volunteers accused the Acts 17 Apologetics team of surrounding him, preventing him from walking away. “This is as blatantly false as an accusation can get,” Nabeel said, as the video footage will vindicate. But uniformed officers arrested the team, led them away in handcuffs to shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” and placed them in jail overnight, Nabeel said.

According to Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad, all four were arrested for disorderly conduct and later released on bail.

Update: 10:58 PM Pacific

We have to remember what the issues are here, and not get distracted by irrelevancies. This is not about one religion versus another. This is not about religion at all. What the issues are here is upholding the fundamental rule of law and protecting the rights and freedoms of Americans that are enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. I am reminded of pastor George Saieg, founder and director of Arabic Christian Perspective, who is fighting to protect his constitutional right to free speech—distributing literature and talking about Christianity to Muslims at the Arab Festival without fear of being arrested. The City of Dearborn had instituted a ban against handing out Christian material near the festival, empowering the police to make arrests. So the Thomas More Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Saieg, challenging the constitutionality of the restriction. Federal District Court Judge Paul Borman for the Eastern District of Michigan, after a year of litigating the matter, sustained Dearborn’s ban. (In response the Thomas More Law Center immediately filed an emergency motion, which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted on Friday; citing from Elrod v. Burns, the three-judge panel noted in their decision, “The loss of a First Amendment right, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”)

That is what the issues are here. This is about the rights and freedoms of Americans as guaranteed by their Constitution, the rights and freedoms of Nabeel Qureshi and David Wood to attend the very public Arab Festival with video cameras, to pass out Christian material if they wish to do so, to speak to Muslims there who approach them and ask about their Christian faith, without fear of being arrested. If the festival was a private function or being held on private property, that would be a different matter. But this is a public event on public property, fourteen blocks on Warren Avenue, open to all people of various cultures and creeds “celebrating our rich [Arabic] heritage,” according to the American Arab Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Fay Beydoun. On what possible grounds can the City of Dearborn temporarily suspend the First Amendment rights of Americans for one weekend on fourteen blocks of the city? And what slippery slope has the U.S. Federal Court for the Eastern District of Michigan created by having upheld such an unconstitutional ban?

People have the right to not be filmed or photographed, sure. But there are two things to consider: (a) your idiosyncratic aversions do not trump the rights and freedoms of every other American when you wilfully enter the public square where people are free to have cameras and camcorders; (b) Nabeel and David always stopped filming when a person objected, respecting that person’s right to not be filmed. Whatever you happen to feel about them walking around the festival with video cameras is quite irrelevant against the fact that they have every right to do so. And if a person who can clearly see that they have cameras approaches them to ask about their Christian faith, they are perfectly within their right to engage the person in that discussion. It is not Nabeel and David who are causing a disruption; it is the security guards, certain attendees, and the Dearborn police who are causing a disruption by assaulting the rights and freedoms that Nabeel and David should otherwise enjoy in the United States of America, which Michigan is a part of, last time I checked.

Update: 11:18 PM Pacific

In a news release from the Thomas More Law Center it was noted: “The Sixth Circuit’s quick response is a great victory for the First Amendment and a defeat for Dearborn’s effort to cater to its large Muslim population by ignoring our Constitution.  It’s ironic that while Americans recently applauded the free speech exercised by hundreds of thousands of Muslims on the streets of Iran, the City of Dearborn was restricting the free speech rights of Christians on the city’s public streets and sidewalks.”

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