Fanatic,

Hey I appreciate your willingness to hold us accountable. No need to apologize for a healthy bit of skepticism.

Fanatic,

I appreciate your honesty. Please watch the unedited version, if you need to see more of the exchange, it is on YouTube, "Arab Fest 2009: The Unedited Footage." In this video, Nabeel reads the pamphlet and explains the problem of the discontinuity between the Qur'an and the pamphlet being handed out. He then goes into the tent to find out their response; especially with regard to Surah 9:29. I believe the video you saw has the end of this exchange on it.

The people at the table were well aware of the pamphlet since they gave it to us from their table. So, no, that was not a correct assessment.

The security guards we approached for verification of our ability to film at this public festival went into the tent with David and Nabeel the second time we asked a question at the table and listened to the exchange; my guess is to make sure we were holding true to what we asked about doing (you saw the asking part on the video).

As far as our honesty: Nabeel states exactly what he is going to do in the unedited footage before he goes into the tent. If the educated teachers of Islam are passing out a pamphlet at a public festival that appears to go against the teachings of the Qur'an and the most trusted ahadith, then they should be willing to provide a public answer for their public action. We heard from two other Christians in attendance at the festival that they had encountered the same problems of 1) no reasonable reply from the table and 2) being escorted off the festival grounds. These guys did not have video cameras going. So what is the reason for their removal? Is it because their questions are too pointed? That is ludicrous. None of the people asking questions are considerably "disturbing the peace." They are asking questions. But, I am making the assumption that generally people do not desire the kind of peace that requires full submission to a certain ideology or philosophy without question. Yikes!

There were real cops at the festival. They had a large trailer set up on one of the side streets (this is where we ended up after our encounter with the security guards). We saw them patrolling the festival on foot.

Done!

Yes, we did file a report with the police. We are looking into further legal action.