Photo via catholicnewsagency.com

Hacker destroys website of Florida group defending Rifqa Bary

A hacker has attacked the website of the Florida Family Policy Council (FFPC), a group assisting the Christian convert Rifqa Bary. The hacker said he made the attack because of the group’s thinking about “Great Islam.” The loss of the website could have consequences for the 2010 election in Florida, the group claimed, reports Catholic News Agency.

In an e-mail to supporters the FFPC said the hacker gained access to its website last Friday and “disabled the entire back-end controls on the site, erased most of the data, disabled the blog and left an obscene message on the events page explaining in broken English who he was and why he was hacking the site.”

A screenshot of the site shows a picture of Arabic characters on a brightly colored fractal background.

“You got hacked due to you s**t thinking abt Great Islam,” the hacker said. “(T)his is due to JHON TAIRY … do good and have good … **** all florida,” the attacker added.

The FFPC reports that its web experts have judged the five-year-old site to be completely unusable and in need of replacement.

The group has been involved in the case of Rifqa Bary, a young girl from Columbus, Ohio. According to the FFPC, she converted from Islam to Christianity and then fled to Florida on a bus after her parents “threatened to kill her for not renouncing her faith.”

FFPC head John Stemberger, who represented Bary in a personal capacity, claimed that her parents’ mosque had ties to terrorist organizations. He has said that Bary could be killed as an apostate if she is sent back to her native Sri Lanka.

He has said she represents a “symbol of help” for young Muslims who want to leave Islam but fear the consequences for doing so.

Stemberger has said the cost for a new website is estimated at about $20,000. Funds still need to be raised, though a donor has offered $10,000 as a matching gift. He said that the website is the group’s “most strategic tool” for defending life, marriage and religious liberty as the November election approaches.

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TAGS: USA Rifqa Bary Florida Family Policy Council Christian convert persecution John Stemberger

[09/16/2010]

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