Frank Gaffney is urging protesters to don headscarves, infiltrate the conference, and record it.
Pamela Geller — via her group the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) — is set to stage a counter-demonstration outside of a conference aimed at challenging negative portrayals of Islam and Muslims. Both events are scheduled to take place Jan. 17 in Garland, Texas.
The conference, titled The Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect, is intended to push-back against both religious “extremists” and “Islamophobes” who they say are turning Muhammad into an “object of hate.”
Predictably, AFDI is billing its event as a rally upholding “free speech.”
“Our AFDI rally will stand for the freedom of speech against all attempts, violent and stealthy, to impose Islamic blasphemy laws on Americans and stifle criticism of Muhammad and Islam,” Geller wrote in the press release announcing the event.
While it is one thing to exercise free speech, it is another to antagonize Muslims and accuse them of conspiring to undermine the Constitution.
Geller may be right about one thing, though: there may be some stealth reconnaissance occurring. However, it may not be coming from those she is suggesting. Anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, along with Geller and other Right-wing media outlets are claiming, as they do, that the scheduled speakers for the conference have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist organizations.
Because of this, Gaffney has urged citizens to don headscarves, infiltrate the conference, and record it.
During a Jan. 14 conference call with the Texas-based conservative group Women on the Wall, Gaffney suggested to a caller that they do just that.
“I would recommend — though this sounds like submission, but for the purposes of the mission — if a women wants to go in and observe or better yet record what is said, put on a scarf,” he told the caller. “You don’t need to buy a hijab, but just covering your head will probably suffice.”
Meanwhile, Geller is urging her base to show up to the rally with “lots of American flags.” This is not the first time Geller has organized and crashed an event such as this. In 2013, she and a mob of protesters descended on a peaceful community forum in Manchester, Tennessee to disrupt the event and heckle attendees.