A lawsuit by seven Muslim women alleging a California restaurant discriminated against them because of their religion has gone down in flames.
The women are withdrawing their claim against the Urth Caffe in Laguna Beach without getting anything in return.
“This lawsuit was a fraud and a hoax from the get-go,” said David Yerushalmi, senior counsel with the American Freedom Law Center.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR helped launched the lawsuit. Among many other complaints, CAIR has sued the authors of a WND Books expose, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” which documented the group’s origins as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood and its current ties to political Islam.
Yerushalmi said that after two years of litigation and “after plaintiffs’ leftist-progressive lawyers, including the ACLU, spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to force a huge financial payoff for themselves and their clients at Urth Caffe’s expense, they have received no money whatsoever and have effectively dropped their claims only to run for the hills.”
The woman claimed they were subjected to religious discrimination when Urth Caffe staff asked them to leave after they refused to follow the restaurant’s seating policy.
Customers are required to give up the highly sought outdoor tables after 45 minutes if there are people waiting for them.
The women are Sara Khalil Farsakh of Corona, Soondus Ahmed of Lake Forest, Sara Soumaya Chamma of Irvine, Yumna H. Hameed of San Juan Capistrano, Safa Rawag of Sunnyvale, and Marwa Rawag and Rawan Hamdan of Amman, Jordan.
The American Freedom Law Center said that during the discovery period, the evidence demonstrated that Urth Caffe, and especially its Laguna Beach café, is a “very popular spot for young Muslims to enjoy organic, heirloom coffee and delicious meals and desserts.”
“A very large percentage of its customer base are Muslims, many of whom wear hijabs. The evidence, mostly in the form of security video tape, proved there was no discrimination against the seven women, or anyone else for that matter.”
The cafe had filed a cross-claim for trespass when the women filed their complaint of religious discrimination.
The cafe owners had offered to work with the women face-to-face to iron out any misunderstandings.
Instead, AFLC said, the women turned to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who in turn “directed the women to a small band of hard-core progressive lawyers.”
“These lawyers badly miscalculated and filed the lawsuit,” AFLC said.
Yerushalmi said the evidence proved there was no discrimination, and Urth Caffe “agreed to do what they would have done without a lawsuit: make the seating policy clearer to customers and to staff.”
“Let this be a lesson to all others. If you use lawfare as your jihad against an AFLC client, be prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars and to get nothing in return!”
‘Civilization jihad’
Robert Muise, also a senior counsel for AFLC, pointed out that CAIR, which was named a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates, was previously named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding case and identified as a Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He said the lawsuit amounted to what the Muslim Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad.”
“In other words, this lawsuit was being waged to use our anti-discrimination laws not for equal protection, but to attain special protection and rights for Shariah-adherent Muslims who reject American and the Judoe-Christian values it stands for,” Muise said.
The women had been refused permission by a judge to sue anonymously.
