Islamic Society expands libel suit
(Correction: Because of an editing error, a story on a libel suit filed by the Islamic Society of Boston in yesterday's City & Region section identified William R. Sapers as a member of the board of Roxbury Community College. Sapers is a member of the foundation of the college, but is not a member of the board.)
Leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston broadened their defamation suit yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court to add conspiracy charges against a group of journalists and scholars who the Muslim leaders allege sought to ruin the reputations of the society and its leaders and prevent construction of a major mosque in Boston.
The suit expanded upon and incorporated two previously filed lawsuits -- the first brought in February against WFXT-TV (Channel 25), and the second in May against Channel 25 and the Boston Herald. In those earlier suits, leaders of the Islamic Society charged that reports broadcast and published in 2003 and 2004 defamed them by falsely linking them to Islamic terrorist groups.
Yesterday's filing alleged that several nonprofit advocacy groups, individuals, and reporters, acting out of alleged bias against Muslims, conspired to defame the society and its leaders.
Among newly named defendants:
Steven Emerson, a Washington-based writer, and his organization, The Investigative Project Inc.;
William R. Sapers, a member of the Board of Trustees of Roxbury Community College;
The David Project Inc., a Boston-based group that focuses on issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its director of education, Anna Kolodner;
Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, a Cambridge-based group that has questioned whether the leaders of the mosque project were moderate Muslims; its president, Boston College political science professor Dennis Hale; and its director, Steven A. Cohen.
The Islamic Society of Boston is the city-designated developer of a $22 million mosque, which is under construction on land next to Roxbury Community College.
The suit alleges that Sapers initially attempted to undermine the project by damaging the Islamic Society's relations with the college through unfounded statements to officials of the college that the society's leaders were associated with Muslim terrorist organizations. After that effort failed, the plaintiffs allege, Sapers then turned to Emerson for assistance ''in an effort to manufacture any negative story he could come up with to support the effort to undermine the project."
Emerson, a former CNN correspondent who in the mid-1990s won numerous investigative journalism awards for his documentary ''Jihad in America," was, by the time Sapers sought him out in 2002, ''widely regarded as a discredited, biased, self-proclaimed 'expert' on radical Islam . . . with a known agenda against Muslims," the suit charges.
Through the first half of 2003, Emerson and Sapers worked together to raise questions about the mosque leadership, the suit asserts. Then the two began a series of communications with the Herald, in particular with reporter Jonathan Wells, aimed at ''publishing false and defamatory statements about the ISB and its leadership in an effort to undermine the ISB and its project," the suit states.
Sapers, Emerson, and Wells -- later joined by Kolodner of the David Project and officers of Citizens for Peace and Tolerance -- were ''engaged in a coordinated effort to undermine the project" of building the mosque, the suit said.
In response to the lawsuit, Charles Jacobs, president of the David Project, said in a statement yesterday that the organization would contest the charges and expected the conspiracy allegations ''will be found factually and legally frivolous and will be dismissed."
Herald spokeswoman Gwen Gage said: ''The Herald stands behind its reporting on this story, and we will continue to pursue news stories with the fairness and thoroughness our readers expect."
Wells, who now works for WFXT, FOX25, referred questions to the station, which said in a statement: ''The complaint . . . contains highly inflammatory and false allegations. . . ."
Both Sapers and Hale said they had not seen the charges. Emerson did not return a call requesting comment. 