Excerpt:
CAIR is out doing what it does best in Orange County, California — demonizing the people who expose radicalism in the Islamic community and obfuscating the facts so that this radicalism goes unchecked. A viral Internet video produced by CAIR California twists what was a peaceful protest against two radical Islamic speakers into a veritable hate rally, indicting many of the demonstration's respected speakers and activists, including some politicians. While CAIR has spent an inordinate amount of time gathering and splicing video footage of the event and denouncing community activists in the press, the most telling aspect of this entire episode is that CAIR has failed to render one word of objection to the radical hate merchants who were invited to speak to the Yorba Linda, California Islamic community. If CAIR is really the bridge-building group it masquerades as, then it is incumbent on them to speak out against these individuals. Yet, they have chosen to protect the radicals and discredit opposition to them instead.
On Feb. 13, community members gathered in Yorba Linda, California to demonstrate against the radical activists Amir Abdel Malik Ali and Siraj Wahaj, who were invited to speak at an Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA charity fundraiser. ICNA Relief is the social services arm of the Islamic Circle of North America and the charity event's purpose was "to raise $350,000 to start social programs such as women's shelters, fighting hunger and homelessness in the area," spokesman Waqas Syed told the OC Register. Although the protest, which drew an estimated 500 people, was peaceful and promoted the importance of free speech, patriotism, and the rejection of radical hate-speech, a much smaller group of protesters gathered at the entrance of the nearby Yorba Linda Community Center, where the fundraiser was taking place, and harassed Muslim attendees in a vicious manner. Some of the attendees were children, and were also subjected to the reprehensible invective. In response, the Council on America-Islamic Relations of California released a heavily edited video portraying the entire Yorba Linda protest as an anti-Muslim hate rally, and the video was widely circulated on the Internet and in the media.