Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is defending the actions of four Christian missionaries arrested in June in Dearborn as they tried to convert Muslims to Christianity during the Arab International Festival.
The four -- Negeen Mayel, 18, of California; Nabeel Qureshi, 29, of Virginia; Paul Rezkalla, 18, of New York; and David Wood, 34, also of New York -- were arrested June 18 in Dearborn. They were arraigned July 12 on fines of up to $500 each and up to 93 days in jail.
Dearborn police said July 12 that the four self-described missionaries “chose to escalate their behavior, which appeared well-orchestrated and deliberate” as they handed out religious literature and talked with people at the festival. The woman and three men are members or founders of a group called “Acts 17 Apologetics.”
In a July 28 e-newsletter, Gingrich defended the four.
“They were ... on a public street outside an Arab festival in a way that is completely permissible by law, but, of course, forbidden by sharia’s rules on proselytizing,” said Gingrich, a Republican, referring to the missionaries passing out literature. “This is a clear case of freedom of speech and the exercise of religious freedom being sacrificed in deference to sharia’s intolerance against the preaching of religions other than Islam.”
Sharia law is a set of religious laws based on the Islamic Holy Book, the Quran.
“Cases like this will become all the more common as radical Islamists grow more and more aggressive in the United States,” Gingrich wrote about the missionaries’ case and others pointed out in the newsletter.
The missionaries are due back in court Aug. 30.