On Saturday, June 29 from 1 PM to approximately 2:45 PM the Muslim American Society’s Greater Los Angeles (MAS-GLA) chapter led its second protest of the month at the Saudi Arabian consulate in downtown Los Angeles’s Japantown neighborhood, allegedly on behalf of three Muslim Brotherhood-linked clerics who are to be executed.
Protesters begin to gather before the march begins:
On left, below: Tareq Purmul, executive director for MAS-GLA:
Center, below: Purmul films and asks questions of the lone journalist who showed up to document the event his group is leading. On the left: Eugene Fields, communications director for the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-GLA). On the Right: Jodie Evans, Code Pink co-founder and co-director, wearing her trademark large pink hat.
Left Below, Yasmeen Azam, assistant regional coordinator for MAS-GLA, again led the protests:
The first protest, organized and led solely by MAS-GLA (and previously written on here for The Daily Wire), took place June 2 and drew roughly two dozen protesters, with around 40 (not everyone who showed up actively participated in the march) sticking around for the concluding speeches, given by influential Islamist thought-leaders in Southern California such as Muslim Brotherhood backer Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl.
Given four weeks’ additional time to organize and co-sponsorship from five other organizations– Codepink, CAIR-GLA, Islamic Center of Hawthorne, We Are All America, and the Usuli Institute – one might logically conclude that this second protest would be a larger draw.
That was not the case however. At any given time only about 13 or 15 people were marching.
Fields was the only CAIR staffer to appear at the event:
While the protest was billed as being in support of three Muslim Brotherhood-supporting scholars set to be executed, plenty of other issues were on the activists’ minds, such as the death of Muslim Brotherhood activist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The Awad and Salman advocated for in the signs below are Salman al-Odah, who issued calls for killing American troops in Iraq and was linked by Spanish prosecutors to the 2004 Madrid train bombing carried out by al-Qaeda, and Awad al-Qarni, who once offered $100,000 to any Palestinian who successfully kidnapped an Israeli soldier.
For this second protest Azam had upgraded from the bullhorn to a traditional microphone and speaker:
When the speeches began early only about 24 stood to listen to Azam, Purmul, Fields, and a Code Pink activist (below).
Left: one Code Pink activist wore a short that read “I Heart Palestinian Human Rights.”
A sad showing for MAS-GLA and Code Pink:
The protest had been scheduled to go until 4 in the afternoon but by 2:45 Azam had said “that’s a wrap” and began collecting the orange traffic cones.
While as ugly as the protests were in advocating for Muslim Brotherhood-linked scholars and militants, at least the day concluded with one of the most beautiful California sunsets in months:
Following the event these four questions were sent to Purmul, Azam and Fields:
- Does your organization oppose the implementation of Islamic law [Sharia], either by the government or as enforced by individuals, in the United States?
- In particular, do you oppose the imposition of hudud punishments (i.e. the cutting off of hands and death penalty for adulterers, apostates, and homosexuals), both in the United States and in all other countries, including those that are majority Muslim or may be majority Muslim in the future?
- Will you denounce the Muslim Brotherhood, and in particular its Palestinian branch Hamas, for both its violent, and non-violent efforts to impose Islamic law [Sharia] globally?
- Do you accept the state of Israel’s right to exist, including recognizing its establishment as a homeland for the Jewish people?
As was expected, both groups chose not to answer.
