A Kansas City mosque that petitioned Barack Obama to ban free speech defaming Islam in 2012 will hold the funeral for one of the two jihadists killed in a shootout Sunday outside a Dallas-area convention center that was hosting a “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest.
The Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City (ISGKC) will hold a funeral on Thursday for Nadir Soofi, according to KCTV5:
The funeral for one of the people suspected in a chilling attack outside a Texas art contest will be held in the metro.
While Nadir Soofi never lived in the metro his father lives in an Overland Park neighborhood near 158th Place with his wife, Nadir’s stepmother. A woman who came to the door at the home told KCTV5 that the family didn’t want to talk about what happened to Soofi.
Police say the 34-year-old and 30-year-old Elton Simpson opened fire at a Dallas area conference center on Sunday. An art exhibit and contest depicting the Prophet Mohammad was being held there.
They wounded a security guard before police shot back, killing both.
While not mentioned in the article’s text, the KCTV5 video report specifically states that Soofi’s funeral service will be at ISGKC.
As I reported at PJ Media back in September 2012, ISGKC launched an online petition calling for Barack Obama to sponsor a bill limiting the free speech of American citizens by criminalizing insults to religion (namely, Islam) following international protest of the “Innocence of Muslims” video.
The petition, which was signed by the ISGKC executive board and posted on the mosque’s website, received 348 signatures. One of the mosque board members defended the petition in an interview with the local media following our PJ Media report:
“Insulting somebody else or putting somebody down can insight violence and lead to people losing their lives. We’re trying not to give these people a chance to misbehave,” said Mohammed Kohia, who started the petition along with the executive board of the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City.
But as a local ACLU attorney explained:
Somebody’s speech is no excuse for violence, that’s right … but you can’t punish the speaker for the violence practiced by others. While I understand why they’re upset, their preposition is clearly unconstitutional.
As I noted at the time, the position of ISGKC was particularly peculiar given that the mosque had hosted internationally renowned Islamic hate speaker Khalid Yasin, whose controversial statements include calling for the death penalty for gays and describing the beliefs of Christians and Jews as “filth.”
An Australian news channel exposed Yasin’s extremist views back in 2005:
So with Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson’s attempts to silence speakers at Sunday’s event in Texas, perhaps Soofi’s funeral at ISGKC is appropriate.
UPDATE: In the “you can’t make this up” category, Kyle Shideler notes that Nadir Soofi “liked” Khalid Yasin on his Facebook page:
@pspoole Man, I guess Soofi liking Khalid Yasin on Facebook really paid off 4 him. pic.twitter.com/vfY41M4efj
— Kyle Shideler (@ShidelerK) May 6, 2015
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