Feminist activist and Women's March organizer, Linda Sarsour, has been accused of enabling the sexual assault of a female employee who worked for her in 2009 at the Arab American Association, two sources "directly familiar" with the matter tell the Daily Caller.
Linda Sarsour
According to Sarsour's accuser Asmi Fathelbab, a 37 year old New York native and devout Muslim - a man named Majed Seif who lived in the same building as the Arab American Association began stalking Fathelbab. Asmi tells the Daily Caller that one of Seif's favorite activities was "sneaking up on her with a full erection."
“He would sneak up on me during times when no one was around, he would touch me, you could hear me scream at the top of my lungs. He would pin me against the wall and rub his crotch on me.”
"depending on what floor I was on, you could hear me scream at the top of my lungs."
“It was disgusting,” Fathelbab told the Caller. “I ran the youth program in the building and with that comes bending down and talking to small children. You have no idea what it was like to stand up and feel that behind you. I couldn’t scream because I didn’t want to scare the child in front of me. It left me shaking.”
When Fathelbab went to Linda Sarsour to report the sexual assaults, she was dismissed and shamed. “She [Sarsour] called me a liar because ‘Something like this didn’t happen to women who looked like me,'” Asmi says. “How dare I interrupt her TV news interview in the other room with my ‘lies.'”
Fathelbab says Sarsour "regularly body-shamed her" and enabled the sexual assaults, and Sarsour threatened to legal and professional damage if she went public with the sexual assault claims. “She told me he had the right to sue me for false claims,” said Asmi, adding that her abuser “had the right to be anywhere in the building he wanted.”
"I cannot stand by any longer and watch everyone praise a woman that claims to be for women’s rights and someone that fights for women when she herself allowed for abuse to occur to women," wrote Fathelbab. When Fathelbab went to the president of the Arab American Association's board of directors, Ahmed Jaber, he too shut her down.
“Jaber told me my stalker was a ‘God-fearing man’ who was ‘always at the Mosque,’ so he wouldn’t do something like that,” Fathelbab claims. “He wanted to make it loud and clear this guy was a good Muslim and I was a bad Muslim for “complaining.” -Daily Caller
In response to these claims, Sarsour attacked Fathelbab - telling her that if she continued to report sexual assaults by Jajed Seif, her allegations would result in disciplinary action. Fathelbab told the Daily Caller that she was once forced to talk to a dectective from the community liaison division about the consequences of making false claims to the authorities.
Two sources who knew Fathelbab while she was employed with the Arab American Association told the Daily Caller that Asmi would return from work "emotionally distressed and in a panic," describing it as an "unsafe" work environment. Another source who has worked with the Arab American Association for 12 years and spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Sarsour was "militant against other women," and that they remember witnessing Fathelbab being harassed in the building.
“They made it about her weight, saying she was not attractive enough to be harassed and then swept it under the rug,” the source said. “It was Linda Sarsour, Ahmad Jaber and Habib Joudeh who took care of it.” Habib Joudeh is the vice president of the Arab American Association of New York. -DC
Fathelbab says that she's now unemployable as a result of going public with her claims.
Linda Sarsour with supporters at Women's March
Sarsour - a self-proclaimed "racial justice & civil rights activist," made headlines during the Women's March for attacking Ayyan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who was forced to suffer female genital mutilation. After the 9/11 attacks, Hirsi Ali renounced Islam and ran for Dutch parliament in 2003, winning. In 2006, she rallied against Iran's development of nuclear weapons, and in 2015, she railed against the Islamic State.
In a now-deleted tweet from 2011, Sarsour - who posed with an alleged Hamas financier in January, said of Hirsi Ali: "I wish I could take their vaginas away - they don't deserve to be women."
In July, Sarsour called for a Jihad against the Trump administration "fascists reigning in the White House" at the Islamic Society of North America Convention.
“I hope that we when we stand up to those who oppress our communities that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad. That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or in the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House,” Sarsour said.
“Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community, it is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority,” she said. “Our obligation is to our young people, is to our women, to make sure our women are protected in our community.”
“Our top priority and even higher than all those other priorities is to please Allah and only Allah,” Sarsour declared.
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The Daily Caller received no response from Sarsour in regards to Asmi Fathelbab's allegations.