by Ashley Stewart
The Clipper
EvCC found itself in the middle of a Facebook oslaughtlast week when a self-proclaimed anti-terrorist organization urged its members to protest speakers invited to a campus series about being Muslim in America.
The panel went on and the virtual protests subsided, but not before Facebook watchers and EvCC administrators got a lesson in uncivil free speech. The vitriol may resurface, however, as controversial speaker Raymond Ibrahim-editor and translator of a book entitled “The Al Qaeda Reader”-has been invited to share his views on May 5.
The virtual protests started at 12:03 p.m. on Jan 16 when Act! for America, posted a call to action on its Facebook wall. The group urged supporters to email EvCC President David Beyer and “ring his phone off the hook” in protest of a visit by the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) later that week.
Seven minutes after the organization’s original posting, the EvCC page received its first comment against the group and the event.
“What a disgrace – ECC should not be a useful idiot for this man’s cause! Why would ECC al- low such a thing on campus?” wrote one early and frequent poster.
The protests subsided when the college issued a statement from President David Beyer that said the college neither supported nor opposed CAIR, and that Ibrahim would be speaking as part of the series later in the year. According to its national website, CAIR strives to be “a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding.”
The humanities steering committee invited CAIR and Ibrahim months ago, according to Craig Lewis, dean of communication and social sciences.
“Inviting Raymond Ibrahim to give an alternative viewpoint on being Muslim is like inviting the KKK to speak about African American history,” said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of CAIR Washington.
Ibrahim was not invited to give an alternative perspective, but to speak on an entirely different topic, Lewis said.
In an email this week Ibrahaim said CAIR is “associated with groups such as Hamas . . . a terrorist organization.” He went on to say that when CAIR goes “out of [its] way to try to essentially censor people like myself, they prove they have something to hide.”
According to Lewis: “I understand that [Ibrahim’s] viewpoint is somewhat controversial. But the college’s policy is not to endorse or condemn different perspectives. If we were going to respond to disappointment from the community, we would have cancelled CAIR.”
The principle was tested last week when the college was bombarded with calls, wrote one early and frequent poster.
Act! for America posted a total of four status updates calling for the ambush on the college’s Facebook page and one additional posting concluding the campaign after Beyer’s comment appeared online.
In the week following the original posting, 66 commentators posted a total of 409 comments related to the CAIR panel. Several comments were removed due to violation of EvCC’s social media guidelines.
“That is a record for a single topic on EvCC’s Facebook page. Previously, the most comments we’ve received have been about EvCC’s snow closure. About 30,” said Katherine Schiffner, media and communications coordinator.
A scan of the public profiles shows that only 13 of the 66 commentators could be tied to EvCC as students-present and former-parents of students and faculty. Of the 13 EvCC related participants, 1o supported the college’s decision to invite CAIR.Two opposed the invitation and one individual held an unclear stance.
At least 15 participants did not reside in Washington State.
The largest and most active group of commentators, exactly 30, did not have their locations publically available. All but one expressed views in opposition to CAIR. Eighteen of these 30 were not associated with actual names or pictures that could identify them.
Their profile pictures included images of Muppets, American flags, animals, former presidents, political figures with captions derogatory toward Islam, religious figures and candy.
Act! for America’s social media campaign against the panel from Jan. 16 to Jan. 18, while comments related to the panel continued after the event.
The college’s only formal response to the campaign was to provide extra security, according to Lewis.
“My appreciation for CAIR has become greater as a result [of the Facebook attack],” said Lewis.
The event was presented at its scheduled time, noon on Jan. 20 in Baker 120. The panel had to be broadcast to an overflow room in Whitehorse 105 because there were so many attendees. Bothrooms were about full by the time the panel had started.
All security officials were present.
Lewis opened the discussion.
“The nature of the Facebook postings temporarily left me feeling very discouraged about the prospects for a healthy, positive future in the United States,” said Lewis.
“Many of the comments were from individuals making statements that they believed to be patriotic or supportive of Christian values, but they were not good representations of either. They were filled with hate, vitriol and misinformation.”
Five panelists ran the conversation: Hajer Alfaham, an EvCC graduate studying law at Seattle University, Safaa Darwish, an American-born Palestinian home-schooled student and her mother Janet Clarke, Angelique Godley, a University of Washington graduate who converted to Islam in 2005 and Jeff Siddiqui, a civil-rights activist
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