There is a much bigger update to the story, however. Apparently, some of the police officers are sympathetic to the plaintiffs and have a problem with what's going on in their Department. Officers wishing to remain unidentified have alleged that Islamic 'honor killings' have taken place in the city and have been covered up. If this can be proven, Mayor John. B. O'Reilly and Police Chief Ronald Haddad will have a much larger problem on their hands.
Via WND:
Officials in the offices of both O'Reilly and Haddad said they were unable to respond to questions about the case, which seeks a court order halting the city's practices regarding speech and distribution of literature on public property at the city's Arab Fest during the summers.Once again, Edmund Burke's credo that 'Evil can only succeed when good men do nothing' is proven correct. If there are good police officers who are aware that their superiors have either condoned or are complicit in 'honor killings' and don't speak up, the behavior will continue. If they do speak up - as what appears to be the case here - this could become a much bigger story.
It also seeks compensatory and punitive damages from the defendants.
The allegation about the honor killings that have been "overlooked" in Dearborn comes on Page 61 of the 96-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan today.
Describing the circumstances under which police officers arrested the Christians and ordered them to spend a night in jail rather than view readily available exculpatory evidence that ultimately cleared them of the charges, the complaint notes that during the booking of the Christians at the city jail, "a sympathetic city police officer told plaintiffs Qureshi and Rezkalla that some of the police officers were 'on their side,' 'agreed with what they were doing' and 'didn't think they did anything wrong,' or words to that effect."
The comments simply were "demonstrating further that defendants retaliated against plaintiffs for their religious speech activity," the complaint explains.
"The sympathetic police officer told plaintiffs that the security personnel hired for the Arab Festival were mostly 'criminals and gang members,'" the complaint explained. Then it continued:
"The sympathetic police officer told plaintiffs that there were instances in the city where 'honor killings' permitted by Shariah had taken place, but they were covered up," the complaint alleges.
Here is the video of the arrests on June 18, 2010