The attorney representing the Muslim owner of a popular Orange County café is countersuing a group of Muslim women who initially sued her business for anti-Muslim discrimination. The counter-suit accuses the group of waging “civilizational jihad” and trespassing.
According to the UK Guardian, David Yerushalmi of the Los Angeles-based American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), the lawyer representing Urth Caffé in Laguna Beach and café owner Jilla Berkman alleged that the initial lawsuit was part of a wider “civilizational jihad” being waged by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which aims “to weaken western civilization”. Further, Yerushalmi reportedly said the women’s discrimination suit was a form of “extortion”, calling the lawyers representing the seven female Muslim plaintiffs “ambulance chasers.”
The seven women, six of whom wore hijabs (a traditional head covering required under Sharia law and in most Muslim countries) claimed that they were asked to leave before they finished eating at the café, and suggested the owner called the police on them due to Islamophobia. However, the restaurant has a stated 45-minute time limit per table and Yerushalmi argued that his client said the women “were loud and abusive to the Urth Caffe employees and refused to give up their table per the stated policy.” Berkman personally authorized one of her employees to call the police on the women.
“That night, as every Friday night, a large number of young people, including a majority of whom are Muslim and of Arab descent, make up the base of Urth Caffe’s customers,” Yerushalmi wrote. “Not surprisingly, many of these customers are women wearing hijabs. None of these other Muslim women were asked to leave.”
[…]
