By Jim Brown
April 26, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Coptic Christian professor at Manchester Community College in Connecticut alleges he lost his job after being harassed and threatened by two radical Muslim women on the faculty.
In his new column for FrontPageMagazine.com entitled, ?Jihad at Manchester Community College,? investigative journalist Lee Kaplan relates the story of MCC Professor Michael Abdelmessih, who taught a course on Islamic fundamentalism and its association with terrorism. According to Kaplan, Muslim faculty members Fatma Antar and Dianne Hussein constantly interrupted Prof. Abdelmessih's class and claimed ?jihad? does not mean attacking non-Muslims but rather, ?protecting Islam.? Kaplan says Antar went so far as to threaten Abdelmessih's family in Egypt, where Copts are brutally persecuted. "Basically they don't want anybody teaching Islam unless it's a Muslim,? the investigative journalist says, ?and of course then they sanitize what the instruction is about."MCC barred Abdelmessih from teaching his course after he was threatened by the two radical Muslim faculty members. But the real reason the professor lost his course, Kaplan contends, is largely because the college does not want any negative discussion of Islam to take place. He notes, "What happened was they took the class away from Michael, and they gave it to Colleen Keyes, who is a Muslim convert."Also, the FrontPageMagazine.com writer says the two Muslim women talked the school's director of non-credit courses into changing the title of the Islamic fundamentalism course to include Christian and Jewish fundamentalism as well. The columnist asserts, "They obviously made threats, and they obviously frightened Ann Bonney from the administration at the school enough that she felt the need to station police at the door to the class and mention the two professors specifically as being a threat also to [Prof. Abdelmessih]."MCC spokeswoman Charlene Tappan responded to questions about the alleged threats by saying the college does not comment on ?personnel issues.? However, she did say that she personally believes an investigation into the situation is warranted.? 2005 AgapePress all rights reserved.