AFDI/SIOA Invites Ground Zero Mosque Leaders to CPAC Panel on Ground Zero Mosque Controversy

NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Freedom Defense Initiative's Stop Islamization of America program is hosting a panel discussion on the Ground Zero mosque controversy at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

CPAC, the largest conservative gathering in the country, will hold its annual conference February 10-12 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The AFDI/SIOA event will be an independent event held during CPAC at the Marriott Wardman Park.

This year's AFDI/SIOA conference at CPAC will focus on the Ground Zero mosque debate. The name of panel is "The Ground Zero Mosque: Why There?"

The event will feature an exclusive preview of portions of the new AFDI/SIOA documentary film, "The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks." A question-and-answer session will follow the screening.

AFDI executive director Pamela Geller and associate director Robert Spencer, who were identified by Ground Zero mosque organizer Daisy Khan as the leaders of the resistance to the mosque, will speak on the status of the mosque initiative, its political and cultural significance, and the possibilities for continued resistance.

Other speakers and 911 family members will be featured as well.

Geller and Spencer have invited Ground Zero mosque organizers Sharif El-Gamal, Daisy Khan and the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to join the AFDI/SIOA panel in the spirit of the "inter-faith dialogue" they claim to champion.

The Ground Zero mosque organizers have not yet responded to this invitation.

The AFDI/SIOA panel will focus on the Ground Zero mosque organizers' request for public funding, examining how that request, as well as the proposed location of the mosque itself, gibes with the claim that the mosque is intended to promote harmony and reconciliation between Muslims and non-Muslims. It will evaluate the mosque organizers' claims about the mosque in light of the history of triumphal mosques in lands conquered by Islamic armies around the world, and discuss the appropriateness of using taxpayer money to fund something that most Americans do not support.

Last year AFDI/SIOA presented a critically acclaimed and well-attended panel entitled "Jihad: The Political Third Rail." Journalist Mark J. Koenig, writing at David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog, called it "the single most important event of this three-day conference." And Pamela Geller brought Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders to CPAC in 2008 to a standing room only crowd.

The Ground Zero mosque debate is scheduled for Friday, February 11 at 3 p.m. The AFDI/SIOA 2011 conference agenda at CPAC will be announced shortly.

AFDI/SIOA is one of America's foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.

Join SIOA's Facebook page here.

For more information, contact Pamela Geller at [email protected].

SOURCE American Freedom Defense Initiative