Pro-Gun Activists Plan Anti-Islam Rally in Dearborn

Organizers originally wanted to hold their anti-Islam rally outside the Islamic Center of America in heavily Arab-American Dearborn, but didn’t file rally permits in time. (Photo via Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

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Local, state and federal police agencies plan to closely monitor an anti-Islam rally planned Saturday in heavily Arab-American Dearborn by anti-government extremist groups that advocate for the open carry of guns.

Organizers say the Global Rally for Humanity is intended to bring awareness of what they call “radical Islam,” the Detroit Free Press reports.

“We are fully prepared to facilitate or mitigate any incidents this coming weekend,” Police Chief Ronald Haddad told the newspaper, adding his department has coordinated with the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office, the intelligence community, and police agencies at all levels of government to coordinate a tactical plan.

The rally will take place on Michigan Avenue near the Henry Ford Centennial Library and the new city hall after city leaders scuttled the organizers’ earlier plan to hold it outside of the Islamic Center of America, one of the biggest mosques in Michigan, because proper permits had not been filed.

It usually takes about 30 days to process a permit to rally in Dearborn, Haddad said.

The rally organizer lives in Michigan, though Haddad did not disclose where.

About 40 percent of Dearborn’s residents are Arab-Americans, and the majority of them are Muslims. Anti-Islam rallies have been frequent in Dearborn. Protests by Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones of Florida protesting what he called “the rise of Sharia law” have occurred off and on since 2011.

The city lost a legal skirmish with Jones in 2013 when a federal judge ruled the city had violated his First Amendment rights by forcing his group to sign an indemnification agreement before speaking at a rally in front of the mosque in 2012, and paid $300,000 to settle a lawsuit. The Bible Believers group also waved anti-Islam signs and a pig’s head on a pole to the Arab-American Festival, a once annual event that was canceled both last year and the year before because of spiraling insurance costs.

Because Dearborn was sued over free speech issues in the past, Mayor John B. O’Reilly told the Free Press the city is “being very cooperative” with the organizers of of Saturday’s rallies.

He said the rally organizer of the Dearborn rally “doesn’t seem to be extreme in any way” and is “very reasonable,” but city leaders are concerned about “who else will come out.”

Muslims and other who feel threatened by the protests are urged to contact law enforcement authorities.