The Islamic Monthly

The Eggplant Post

Attorney General Eric Holder Conducts “Sting” Operation at Muslim Charity Event

EP: San Francisco – Attorney General Eric Holder courted controversy at a December 10th, 2010 charity dinner held by Muslim Advocates, a national legaladvocacy and civil rights group, when he “entrapped” and arrested several Muslim audience members in a sting operation during the evenings proceedings.

Holder was initially greeted by the 300-person audience of Muslim civic leaders with a standing ovation and series of applause as the Attorney General adamantly stated that discrimination against the Muslim community would not be tolerated by the Obama Administration. However, the mood in the room quickly changed when Holder presented a slide show of American-supported military actions around the world. Scenes depicted images from Guantanamo Bay, Abu-Ghraib prison, dead Palestinian babies and the charred remains of Pakistani civilians killed by unmanned American drone attacks. Holder then asked the audience whether these actions deserved “retribution.” He proceeded to inform audience members that there was a device taped under each seat and if they felt “speaking out” against this violence or “praying” for the victims was not enough, they could simply enter the number “786” into the device keypad and the “bad people who did these things would go away.”

Several audience members, distraught and weeping at the depiction of injustice and suffering, quickly located the devices and entered the numbers. Upon executing the sequence, under-cover FBI agents at each table arrested the offending individuals and removed them from the dinner for further questioning. Those arrested included a 14-year old boy who claimed that he thought the device was a “hand-held video game.”

After the event, the remaining audience members shook hands and posed for pictures with the Attorney General but were visibly shaken by the proceedings. “Not sure what happened here” said Abdullah Azim, a native of San Francisco and supporter of Muslim Advocates, “they have taken my wife for questioning and are not telling me when or if I will ever see her again.”

The President of the group, Farhana Khera, was happy that the Attorney General attended and spoke at the event, but expressed mixed emotions at the outcome. “While its great that we were able to get a sitting Attorney General to come speak at our fund raiser, I feel like several constitutional laws were broken tonight which makes this kind of a bitter-sweet evening for us.”

Reports that arrested audience members yelled “Allahu Akbar” upon being led away by authorities were later proven to be false when organizers pointed out that the sounds were actually coming from a late-evening prayer session being held in an adjacent room. from eggplantpost.com