Thursday, July 23, 2009

Joe Kaufman Whoops Legal Jihad


Joe Kaufman runs the website Americans Against Hate (AAH). The very name is emblematic of anti-racism. The AAH has a special focus on a group of people who demonstrate a huge capacity to “hate” people who disagree with them. That group of People is the overt and covert supporters of radical Islam.

The AAH has a blog that picks on the American-Muslim group who often claims to represent the plight of Muslims in America – Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Thus the blog is called CAIR Watch.

Trust me though, CAIR is not the only American-Muslim group pretending to be moderate when in fact they either support radical Islam or actually receives funds from radical Islamic groups (Hamas comes to mind).

Joe Kaufman led a relatively small group of people to protest a meeting led by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) in Dallas, Texas. Here was the result of that exercise of Free Speech:

… Joe Kaufman, an American activist and the chairman of Americans Against Hate, traveled to Texas to lead a peaceful ten-person protest against the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), an organization that has been tied to Pakistani radical Islamic groups. During Kaufman's peaceful protest he was served with a harsh temporary restraining order as well as a suit alleging defamation and harassment. What is particularly troubling about Kaufman's case, is that the suit was not filed against him by ICNA, but by seven Dallas area plaintiffs who had never previously been mentioned by Kaufman, nor had they present at Kaufman's protest. ... (quoted from SlantRight.com post)


The legal intimidation Kaufman experienced has several names: lawfare, stealth Jihad, soft Jihad, legal Jihad and probably a few terms I have missed. Nonetheless, all the words refer Muslims or Muslim groups with money who intimidate anti-Islamists and anti-Jihadists into silence by burying them in legal molasses.

There have been some very successful cases of Muslims intimidating their critics internationally. This specifically has been successful in Europe because civil law places the burden of proof on the defendant rather than the accusing plaintiff.

America has been a bit more difficult for moneyed Muslims to intimidate for the law here is the plaintiff (i.e. the accuser) must prove the defendant libel. Also the defendant has the right to “discovery” in which the asking of all documents must be followed through for the defense to have an opportunity to build its case.

There have been cases though in which foreign governments (due to treaties or such legal manipulations) have asked American jurisdiction to enforce the decisions of foreign courts against American citizens. Many States have enacted anti-libel terrorism legislation (or the various names mentioned above) and the Federal government has worked on legislation as well. The aim for legislation against foreign law suits is to make sure American civil rights trumps any divergence of a foreign law in litigation.

Writers such as Joe Kaufman have been assailed by financially endowed American-Muslim or North American-Muslim groups as a form of legal intimidation. The intimidation is not necessarily with the goal of winning, rather the goal is to break the accused with legal fees that are unaffordable.

With the pro bono aid of the Thomas More Law Center, Kaufman has scored a victory for American Free Speech and placed another dent in Legal Jihad as a tool of persecution.

WorldNetDaily has a detailed account of a Texas State Appeals Court dismissing the Legal Jihad against Joe Kaufman.

JRH 7/23/09 (Hat Tip: ACT! For America)

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