Arab Festival Protesters Argue Free Speech, Religious Freedom Before 6th Circuit

Protesters from California-based Bible Believers were met with counter protests at the 2012 Arab International Festival. (Patch file photo)

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Lawyers for California-based Bible Believers, a group of Christian evangelists ordered to leave the 2012 Arab International Festival in Dearborn after violence erupted, were scheduled to argue before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court Wednesday that the group’s First Amendment lawsuit against the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office should move forward.

The Bible Believers are well known for provocative protests that include waving a pig’s head on a pole and decrying Islam as a false religion. The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group, says the Bible Believers is a hate group.

When members protested the Arab International Festival for a second time in 2012, residents responded by hurling eggs, water bottles, chunks of concrete and other objects at the protesters.

Instead of protecting them, the Bible Believers are arguing in their lawsuit against Wayne County Sheriff and Benny Napoleon and two deputies, authorities escorted them away, violating their rights to religious freedom and free speech.

Nabih Ayad, an attorney for the sheriff’s office, told the Detroit Free Press that the Bible Believers were inciting a riot by waving the head of a pig – a symbol many Muslims say was meant to offend them because they avoid pork and see it as unclean – and shouting anti-Islam rhetoric, waving signs denigrating the Islamic prophet, Mohammed.

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“What was law enforcement to do, wait until a riot broke out before asking the group to disperse?” Ayad said. “It was a decision to protect the public from harm.

“I support the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution with full vigor,” he said, “but I also must support the idea that there are times when it must take a back seat to matters which become an issue of public safety.”

The attorney for the Bible Believers, led by Ruben Chavez, says protesters have never been treated as they were in Dearborn, where about 40 percent of residents are Arab Americans and most of them are Muslims. Dearborn has the largest concentration of Arab Americans of any city in the United States.

“The Bible Believers have protested in a lot of other areas, and they have never been attacked like they were in the city of Dearborn,” said Ann Arbor attorney Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center, who filed the lawsuit.

He said upholding police rights in this case would provide a “perverse incentive for hecklers” to quash free speech with violence, and also encourages police to shut down events they don’t like with an intimidating show of force that incites violence among already angry crowds.

“That sets a dangerous precedent,” he said.

Attended by thousands, the Arab International Festival is the largest outdoor gathering for Arab Americans in the country. Law enforcement had a heavy presence – 53 officers, six of them on horseback – after violence erupted at the 2011 festival. The Bible Believers had asked for police protection in the event of repeated violence in 2012.

Both the 2013 and 2014 festivals were canceled.

The hearing before the full 6th Circuit a 2-1 decision last year in which a three-judge panel of the court sided with Wayne County, writing: “Although robustly guarded by the First Amendment, religious conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society.”

That decision reversed a May 2013 federal court ruling tossing out the Bible Believers’ lawsuit.

Muise said he thinks the appeals court’s decision agreed to hear the case in full, or en banc, is a rare move signaling the judges are poised allow the lawsuit to move forward.