Dearborn, Michigan, has become the model city for America’s double standard: a place where the mayor and police chief, both drawn from a radical-aligned Islamic community, wield power not to protect free speech, but to punish dissent.
In November 2021, Abdullah Hammoud made history as the first Arab-American and Muslim elected as mayor of Dearborn. Just a year later, in 2022, he elevated Issa Shahin to become the city’s first Muslim police chief. Shahin is the 47-year-old son of an Egyptian father and Albanian mother, married to a Jordanian-American woman. He now controls Dearborn’s law enforcement arm.
Together, Hammoud and Shahin represent a historic shift: both of Dearborn’s most powerful offices, political and police, are held by Muslim men deeply tied to a very controversial Islamic community. And that fact matters, because under their leadership, a troubling pattern has emerged. Non-Muslims are punished for reckless words, while Muslims are shielded when they chant open incitement.
Dearborn’s new reality came into focus this month. Anthony Young, 27, allegedly made a foolish comment about the annual Arba’een march in Dearborn during a Facebook argument. This comment has led to shocking repercussions.
The Arba’een Procession commemorates the martyrdom of Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussein, killed in 680 AD during the battle of Karbalaa. Imam Husham Al-Husainy leads the Arba’een procession, where thousands of Shia Muslims take to the streets. His mosque, the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center, is named after the town where Imam Hussein was martyred.
“Today, the whole world needs the meaning of the movement of Imam Hussein,” Al-Husainy said.
A Foolish Comment? Or a Genuine Threat?
Young allegedly made a reckless comment on Facebook: “Someone should show up and let a couple of clips out.” Within hours, multiple officers descended on his home to arrest him.
The phrase implies violence, but its indirect wording (“someone should” vs. “I will”) makes it vague, speculative, and far from a credible threat. Still, Dearborn police treated him like a terrorist, storming his house as if words alone were bullets.
The previous day, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud and Police Chief Issa Shahin warned that threats against “our community” will be met with zero tolerance:
When someone threatens violence against our community, we will act swiftly and decisively. There is zero tolerance for threats of this nature, and anyone who attempts to sow fear or division will be held fully accountable. The safety and unity of our community will always come first.
According to a TCD Dearborn News Facebook post, police “continue to monitor social media and other platforms to identify potential threats early.” In this case, however, it was the “community” that brought the “threat” to the police’s attention. Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin “praised the community for bringing the threat to the department’s attention and his officers for their quick response.”
“I got into an argument with some people on Facebook,” Young says in body camera footage.
The incident brings to mind a 2017 case about Robert Peralta, who was arrested for a Facebook comment saying, “Let’s burn this motherf***er’s house down” about a sheriff’s deputy in San Francisco. The charge was dropped because it was deemed protected speech, not a credible threat or incitement, despite its inflammatory tone. Arguably, Robert Peralta’s remark was much stronger than Anthony Young’s incautious comment. Yet Peralta walked free, while in Dearborn, a Facebook comment lands a man in jail, even as mobs chanting “Death to America” and glorifying Hezbollah march through the streets without a single arrest. That is not law enforcement; that is selective enforcement.
The Double Standard in Dearborn
Last year, at a Quds Day militant rally in Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud himself admitted that violent chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” were shouted from the stage. No one was arrested. No one was investigated. Not a single police officer was dispatched.
On September 25, 2024, Hammoud spoke at a “Stand with Lebanon” rally in Dearborn, where the crowd broke into chants of “Death to Israel.” The event featured Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News. Siblani hailed slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “hero” and told Jews to “go back to Poland.” When the crowd erupted with chants, Siblani encouraged them. He said: “Believe me, they will take care of the job,” an apparent reference to Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
Hammoud embraced Siblani on stage and delivered remarks attacking U.S. support for Israel. But he never condemned the “Death to Israel” chants or Siblani’s praise for Hezbollah. Instead, Hammoud used the rally to promote the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Memorial Service for Hezbollah Fighter
While Anthony Young faces prison time for a Facebook post, Dearborn’s Islamic Institute of Knowledge (IIOK), a tax-exempt mosque, held a memorial service on September 22, 2024, for Hezbollah fighter Fadel Abbas Bazzi, who was celebrated as a martyr.
Dearborn.org shamelessly promoted this event celebrating a killer whose terrorist group is tied to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. This glaring double standard – jailing one man’s speech while a mosque celebrates a terrorist on U.S. soil – exposes a dangerous misuse of tax-exempt status to shield and glorify actual violence.
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud is Dangerous
The danger here is twofold: First, Hammoud is not just a local official—he is a member of the U.S. State Department’s Assembly of Local Leaders (ALL), a panel that advises the federal government on foreign policy issues. That means a sitting adviser to the State Department has appeared alongside a man praising Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, while a mob shouted genocidal chants against Jews.
Second, Hammoud has a record of justifying Islamic violence. He called Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis “inevitable” and spread Hamas propaganda about the Al-Ahli hospital explosion in Gaza, falsely blaming Israel. Yet when a non-Muslim in Dearborn made a vague Facebook comment, Hammoud and Police Chief Shahin immediately demanded “zero tolerance.”
This contrast exposes the reality: In Dearborn, dangerous rhetoric is excused if it comes from Muslims chanting for Israel’s destruction, but criminalized if it comes from outsiders who criticize the community.
Islam Provides the Blueprint
The lesson is unmistakable: in Dearborn, when a non-Muslim makes an ugly Facebook comment, he’s treated like a criminal. When Muslims gather by the thousands to call for America’s destruction, they are protected by the very people sworn to enforce the law.
Islam itself provides the blueprint for Dearborn’s double standard. Under sharia (Islamic law), justice is not universal but tiered: Muslims enjoy full protection, while non-Muslims are tolerated only if they submit, pay the jizya tax, and accept their inferior status.
The Qur’an warns believers to defend their prophet from insult (33:57) and commands them to “fight those who do not believe…until they submit” (9:29). Muhammad himself declared, “I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah” (Sahih Bukhari 25). In this framework, real justice only arrives when the entire world lives under Islam. That is why, in Dearborn, a non-Muslim’s reckless Facebook remark is met with “zero tolerance,” while open chants of “Death to America” are excused as religiously righteous resistance.
Anthony Young Featured on the Local News
Anthony Young’s minor misdemeanor exploded into headlines, drawing multiple articles and even coverage on local TV news.
Watch:
During the report, Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin warns that threats will not be tolerated against “our community”. Journalist Farez Javed (who was born and raised in Dubai) is dismissive of the constitutional right to due process in this exchange:
Police Chief Issa Shahin: Yeah, we don’t waste any time when there’s a threat made against our community. I’m proud of the community for bringing the threat to the department’s attention and of our officers’ ability to identify and arrest the suspect.
Farez Javed: Innocent until proven guilty, but regardless, when you hear such threats being made towards the community, this is not the first, sadly.
Police Chief Issa Shahin: It’s entirely unacceptable, and there’s no room for that in the city of Dearborn. And so, whenever these unfortunately do occur or should occur, we will spare no expense. We’ll work with our local and state partners, our federal partners, to make sure to hold those folks accountable. And the reality is, far too often, our community has been targeted for various reasons, and it’s unacceptable, and I can assure you that the mayor and I have no room for it.
CAIR’s Dawud Walid Calls for Hate Crime Charges
In a press release titled “CAIR-Michigan Calls for Hate Crime Charge for Threats Targeting Muslim Procession”, CAIR-MI‘s Executive Director Dawud Walid, who has endorsed the killing of Jews and has shown sympathy for Hamas, says:
We call on the Wayne County prosector [sic] to charge the alleged perpetrator using the Ethnic Intimidation provision of Michigan law. No group of citizens should be threatened with potential violence or intimidated due to their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Dawud Walid has been allied with radical congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Watch his screeching rant about “building political power” in this X post:
Rep-elect Rashida Tlaib shared the stage at a anti-Jew TERROR rally with HAMAS-linked CAIR’s Dawud Walid
Walid endorsed the killing of Jews in TWEETS
Walid & Tlaib are Liars
this is not a struggle against “occupation” – it’s an ISIS inspired jihad to slaughter Jews & Israel. pic.twitter.com/pgoUm7atWy
— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) November 19, 2018
In this video, Dawud Walid shares the stage with Rashida Tlaib and Imam Hassan al-Qazwini, founder of the Islamic Institute of America:
According to the press release, Walid claimed that the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center “in the past has been vandalized and threatened.” CAIR’s assertions of threats and vandalism against the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center likely rely on a 2007 incident of window breaking that produced no convictions, no suspects, and no verifiable evidence of perpetrators.
Perpetual victimhood and chronic accusations of “Islamophobia” is a consistent narrative for CAIR.
Judge Makes Anthony Young an Example
Young was arraigned in the 19th District Court on August 18, 2025, with a bond set at $5,000. If Anthony Young cannot pay the $5,000 bond, he will remain in custody until his next court appearance on September 17, 2025.
In a stunning move, the judge slapped Young with a GPS tether order and an internet ban as conditions of release, treating him like a dangerous criminal, stripped of basic freedoms before a trial had even concluded.
The Judge in the case, Mark Somers, “read out two misdemeanor counts of malicious use of telecommunications services.”
He said:
It is alleged that you did maliciously use a service provided by a telecommunication service provider with the intent to terrorize, frighten, intimidate, threaten, harass, molest, annoy, or disturb the peace and quiet of Rebekah Renner and other participants or marchers by threatening physical harm or damage to any person or property in the course of a conversation or message through the use of a telecommunication service or device. This is a misdemeanor charge. If in fact you were guilty, the maximum penalty is up to six months in jail, two years probation, a $1,000 fine plus court costs.
Is Rebekah Renner the community member who contacted the police about Anthony Young’s Facebook post?
Judge Mark Somers addressed Young sternly, letting slip an anti-Second Amendment bias.
He said:
I understand you got charged as a misdemeanor, not a felony — this is not child’s play. In this day and age where every third person has an assault rifle, talking about emptying their clips into people, this is not child’s play.
It seems like the Judge was disappointed that Young was not charged with a felony.
“I understand the charges, and I’m completely regretful,” Young said as he stood in handcuffs listening to the charges.
Who is Rebekah Renner?
The woman Judge Mark Somers referred to in connection with the “argument” involving Anthony Young is almost certainly RebekahAnn Renner, an eccentric, politically radical activist whose own story raises serious questions about credibility.
Renner’s background is a case study in instability. Once dabbling in witchcraft under the Facebook handle “witchymom3.0”, she openly admits she once prepared a ritual to curse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Within months, she pivoted from casting spells against Israel to proclaiming herself a Muslim “revert,” publicly celebrating her conversion at the Islamic Center of America.
On her Facebook project, The Neuro-Spicy Revert: Where Neurodivergence Meets Divine Resistance, she describes herself as a “neurodivergent Muslim revert rewriting her life with Allah at the center. From witchcraft to wudu, trauma to tawakkul…” This erratic path — from occult curses to militant Islamic devotion — underscores how unstable and radicalized her worldview has become.
Screenshot of RebekahAnn Renner’s Facebook profile: complete with the progressive pronoun tag “she/her.” Even here, her self-presentation is steeped in identity politics and ideological signaling.
Her political activism reinforces the point. In 2023, she co-chaired the Inaugural Birch Bayh Democracy Dinner for the Howard County Democratic Party, while simultaneously railing against America. In reference to U.S. policy on Iran, Renner declared:
“Our own government funds genocide, upholds white supremacy, and systematically destroys poor communities, yet no one calls for our regime change from the outside.”
This wasn’t a throwaway rant; it was rhetoric straight out of Tehran’s propaganda machine, flipping the narrative to demand regime change in Washington, not in Iran.
In 2023, Renner co-chairs a Howard County Democratic Party Dinner.
Today, Renner is an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist, amplifying the narratives of groups like the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center and endorsing the sectarian Arba’een procession.
Far from being a neutral participant, Renner is a witch-turned-Muslim-activist with a documented history of unstable, radical behavior, from cursing world leaders to parroting anti-American, pro-Islamic rhetoric. For Judge Somers to elevate her account as central to Anthony Young’s case is deeply troubling, and it exposes how politicized, unreliable figures are being weaponized in the courtroom.
What Happened to Freedom of Speech?
“Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt you” is a childhood chant that is very sage advice in the era of social media.
Young’s arrest in Dearborn highlights a troubling trend of policing speech. This pattern echoes practices in places like the United Kingdom, where authorities increasingly target offensive words on social media. All under the guise of protecting communities.
As observed by Lord Young of Acton, “More often than not…the police record these episodes as ‘non-crime hate incidents’, with over 13,200 recorded last year.”
Why? Because there are too few real “hate crimes.” So officials inflate the numbers with catch-all categories like “hate speech” and “hate incidents”, labels used to justify absurd arrests for words that merely offend.
Anthony Young was never a danger. But he made an easy target, a stand-in villain for a system desperate to invent “hate” where none exists.
Hezbollah Terrorists and ‘Death to America’
While Young faces consequences for his words, the march’s leader has faced less scrutiny for far more serious statements. Imam Husham Al-Husainy supports Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization. Additionally, he backs Iran, where “Death to America” serves as a literal political slogan since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Islamic thought leaders regularly issue fatwas against President Trump and Israel. As reported just this month at PJ Media, “thousands of Iranian Muslim clerics, including prominent government-tied clerics, are once again declaring that assassinating Donald Trump would be a holy service to Allah.”
Every year since 2004, Iraqi-American Shia cleric Imam Husham Al-Husainy has led the Dearborn Arba’een Procession. The march honors the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. RAIR founder Amy Mek writes about this “controversial show of power” vastly ignored by the legacy media.
Islamization of Michigan!
Just days ago, thousands of Shia Muslims marched down the streets of Dearborn, Michigan, in the Tenth Annual Ashura Procession.
This controversial event took place in Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s district, and as you will notice, there… pic.twitter.com/Gwxj9zUUfR
— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) July 17, 2024
Imam Husham Al-Husainy’s Radical History
When Imam Husham Al-Husainy was tapped in January to deliver a benediction at Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, RAIR sprung into action, educating Americans on Al-Husainy’s radical history. After backlash, Al-Husainy was uninvited to the inauguration.
Al-Husainy has a well-documented history of supporting Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and even refused to denounce them in 2007. He displayed a picture of a Hezbollah leader at a 2006 Dearborn rally. He backs Iran’s influence, calling it a “light” in the Middle East. Al-Husainy has ties to Iranian-backed figures like Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. He pushed for Sharia-compliant laws to criminalize Koran burning in the U.S., a clear violation of free speech.
In 2015, he called Saudis “agents of the Jews” and demanded their execution. He signed a letter urging “Holy Jihad” in America. His mosque mourned terrorist Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed with Iran’s Qasem Soleimani.
What is the Real Threat?
Anthony Young’s arrest for a reckless Facebook post in Dearborn exposes a glaring hypocrisy. While police swiftly jailed him for words, the Arba’een march’s leader, Imam Husham Al-Husainy, openly supports Hezbollah and Iran’s “Death to America” rhetoric without consequence. The real threat is militant Muslims, and it is ignored because the very people in power are aligned with them. In Dearborn, the city is run by those who excuse, enable, and even embrace that threat.
This is not unique to Michigan. It is the same pattern we have already seen across Europe: wherever Muslims gain political power, two-tier policing takes hold, where non-Muslims are criminalized while Islamic incitement is excused. Unless America confronts it now, what is happening in Dearborn will spread to every place where Islamic supremacists are elected.
The post Sharia Arrest in Dearborn: Non-Muslim Jailed for Facebook Post While Islamic Death Chants Go Unpunished appeared first on RAIR.
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Author: Renee Nal
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