Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour and several associates from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) were arrested on Tuesday after demanding to meet with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in his Washington office on Tuesday. They were reportedly protesting the lack of any action on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).
Sarsour was arrested with Zahra Billoo, Omar Suleiman, Dawud Walid, Talib Shareef, Nihad Awad, and Mujahid Fletcher of CAIR.
“We don’t want to live based on fear. We want to live according to the principles of freedom of speech, of religion,” argued Fletcher.
Realistically, they might have welcomed a meeting with Ryan, but that’s not what this was about. This was grandstanding. The goal was to make headlines and possibly paint Ryan in a negative light.
And Sarsour needs someone else to be in some negative light.
As The Daily Caller noted:
Sarsour’s arrest comes after Asmi Fathelbab accused her of covering for the man who allegedly sexually harassed Fathelbab while she worked for the Arab American Association. Fathelbab told The Daily Caller in December that her coworker Majed Seif had rubbed her crotch without her consent and had stalked her in 2009 while she worked as an employee for the Arab American Association. She maintains that Sarsour, then the executive director of the group, covered for him. Seif is now suing for defamation, maintaining that Fathelbab’s claims are false.
In other words, Sarsour’s crowd may argue “believe all women,” but Sarsour clearly didn’t. Now she’s looking to get her name back on people’s minds for something other than this.
Sarsour and company knew nothing would come of this. They probably even know that their antics won’t accomplish anything regarding DACA. At the most generous reading of this stunt, what we have is virtue signaling and nothing else.
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