Rifqa Bary is in grave danger. Rifqa, the girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled to Florida after saying that her father threatened her life, could now be returned to her devout Muslim family.
Last Tuesday, Oct. 27, she was returned to Ohio and placed in foster care in Franklin County. Eric Fenner, the executive director of Franklin County Children Services, said that he has “no reason to believe Rifqa wouldn’t be safe with her parents” — with the father who according to Rifqa said, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You’re not my daughter . . . I will kill you.”
And even now in Ohio, Rifqa Bary’s civil rights are being violated. She is being held prisoner: She is not allowed use of the phone or the Internet, unlike thousands of other children in foster care. Why? What is her crime?
Jim Zorn, a children’s services attorney, is the one who asked Franklin County Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich to forbid Rifqa from using the Internet and her cell phone.
Zorn explained: “What we want to restrict is the other people, the other organizations, the other forces, that have interjected themselves into this case inappropriately, and has caused the additional problems that we’ve seen.”
Her father may have threatened to kill her, and Zorn and Goodrich are keeping her away from the people who saved her and took her in.
The isolation of Rifqa is an egregious crime. How will we know if she is not being psychologically or physically abused? How will we know if she is all right?
Rifqa Bary should be posting to a Facebook page every day. The Ohio authorities and the Islamic supremacists who are pulling their strings are not protecting this girl, but rather are endangering her life.
They said that she is under no threat, but then they would not release details about her trip back to Ohio “for safety reasons.” Underneath it all, they have to know that Rifqa is in danger. But they don’t seem to care.
Even worse, Rifqa was returned to Ohio after Rifqa’s parents reneged on a deal and double-crossed Rifqa’s former Florida guardian ad litem, Krista Bartholomew.
After repeatedly being asked to produce their immigration documents and repeatedly failing to do so, and after I proved their illegal status and perjury on immigration forms at my Web site AtlasShrugs.com, Rifqa Bary’s parents risked being held in contempt of court.
So Rifqa’s father’s attorney, David Colley, made a deal with Bartholomew: The contempt of court charge would be dropped, and in exchange, Rifqa would be allowed to stay in foster care until she turned 18 — in other words, until she could be free of her parents.
Rifqa’s friend and fellow Muslim apostate Jamal Jivanjee explained what happened next: “This sounded like it was too good to be true, and it was! As soon as Rifqa was transferred into Ohio custody and the Florida court gave up their emergency jurisdiction over Rifqa and the immigration issue, Rifqa’s parents fired their own attorney that made the deal!” Now all deals are off, and Rifqa could be returned home very soon. “Let this be a lesson,” Jivajee said, “about Mohamed Bary’s real intentions.”
Rifqa’s parents lied to the court in Florida to get Rifqa back into their clutches. They never produced the immigration documents.
They should be on their way back to Sri Lanka and Rifqa should be applying for apostasy asylum. To send her back to Sri Lanka would be a death sentence.
And the rights violations don’t stop there. Rifqa is up against a large array of legal talent: her parents have changed lawyers as frequently as toddlers change diapers. Rifqa was given a new attorney in Ohio. Who chose him is unclear. His qualifications to defend Rifqa are unclear.
Is he well-versed in Shariah and apostasy? Who is choosing her lawyer? Does she have a say? Why can’t she choose her own attorney?
It’s criminal that Rifqa does not pick her own attorney. It’s criminal that the same statists who are enforcing Shariah, the same statists who will send Christian convert Rifqa Bary back to a fundamentalist Islamic home, the same statists who are putting her life in jeopardy, are the same statists who are picking her lawyer. This is like a Third World country.
Rifqa Bary is getting railroaded.