Florida camp cancels Muslim group's retreat By John H. Adams The Layman Online Tuesday, January 3, 2006 The Board of Directors of the Presbyterian Cedarkirk Camp and Conference Center in Lithia, Fla., has issued a statement saying it decided to cancel all camp activities – including a retreat by a Muslim American group – over the New Year's weekend. They said the cancellation was "due to threats received." News that the camp, which is owned jointly by the presbyteries of Tampa Bay and Peace River, planned to host a retreat by the Muslim American Society of Tampa spawned several reports and commentary from Jewish-related writers. The Layman Online published an account about the controversy on Dec. 30. Some of those accounts said one of the society's scheduled speakers, Mazen Mokhtar of New Jersey, had been investigated by the U.S. government for allegedly operating a Web site to raise money for Islamic terrorist groups. In a statement titled "Cedarkirk responds to terrorism allegations," Cedarkirk's board said, "During the week of December 25th, terrorism allegations were made against the Muslim American Society and retreat speakers. We immediately exercised due diligence contacting the relevant governmental authorities at both the local and the federal level. They informed us that there was nothing at all about the scheduled speakers or this group that should cause us to not allow this group to come on retreat." The board also said that the society's retreat "was described as a peaceful time apart, to learn peacemaking, experience the beauty of creation and recreation. Cedarkirk would never allow any program advocating any form of violence or hate-mongering to take place on our site. The Society provided us with copies of their curriculum, inviting our staff to be present at their event, so that we could see first hand the peaceful nature of their program." Nonetheless, after news accounts about the retreat, including a report on Fox News, Larry Rued, a Presbyterian elder in Florida, began an e-mail campaign asking Presbyterians to express their concern about the society's retreat to leaders of the two presbyteries. He said the presbyteries had not been involved in the decision to host the society's retreat. The Muslim American Society of Tampa moved the meeting to another location. It also posted on its Web site links to news accounts, including an article published in the St. Petersburg Times. The news service of the Presbyterian Church (USA) did not publish any account of the event. The Times said it interviewed Mokhtar, a computer programmer who acknowledged that he was the target of the government's raid. But he said he was never arrested. Mokhtar was accused of running a Web site that raised money for terrorists. But he told the Times that he merely sold the Web site and was not aware of its content. During a Fox News program, a commentator said that Mokhtar's name appeared on an online discussion with the statement, "Suicide bombing should be encouraged because it's an effective way of attacking the enemy." Mokhtar told the Times that he did not remember writing those words. "It is not my position now nor has it ever been my position that a Muslim should ever attack an innocent person," he said. The Times quoted Mohamed Moharram, president of the Muslim American Society of Tampa, as saying that the three-day event was arranged teach young Muslims leadership skills as well as the core tenets of Islam, but, "We got threats to be burned, to be destroyed. It's appalling." The Tampa Tribune also published an account of the retreat.

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