Tom Trento, executive director of the Florida Security Council (FSC) and  Rebecca Bynum, New English Review (NER)  editor were interviewed by 1330AMWEBY "Your Turn" host Mike Bates and Jerry Gordon, contributing editor of the NER on the eve of the FSC filing its suit against Marriott Corporation for breach of contract. The suit arose as a result of the Marriott Delray Beach operators, Island Properties, Ltd.  ejecting the Free Speech Summit in late April  that FSC organized honoring Dutch politician and anti-Islamist advocate, Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV (Freedom Party).  As we noted in a post this week, the FSC  Marriott matter was preceded by an attack  against Florida House Majority Leader Rep. Adam Hasner by CAIR and United Voices for America founder, former Tampa CAIR chapter leader, Ahmed Bedier, a one time spokesperson for convicted terror financier, former USF Professor Sami al-Arian.   They had the chutzpah to request that Florida Governor Charles Crist 'fire' Hasner because of his association with Wilders, the Free Speech Summit and the March 10th rebuttal to Muslim Day at the State Capitol in Tallahassee. 

The FSC ejection is analogous to one that the New English Review experienced in late May in Nashville, when the Loews Vanderbilt hotel general manager, Thomas Negri gave notice that it was cancelling a long term contract for the symposium, "Understanding Jihad in Israel, Europe and America", in part because of a video featuring Wilders remarks extended to attendees. The alleged reason for the Nashvile NER symposium event cancellation by  Negri,  was to protect the 'health and safety of its employees and guests".  This breach by Loews is being reviewed for possible action by the New English Review and its parent board, the World Encounter Institute, a 501 c3 tax exempt organization.

This NewsMax.com report, "Counterterrorism Group Sues Marriott Over Wilders Event,"provides  background on the FSC suit against Marriott and its implications vis a vis the similar breach by Loews for the NER Nashville symposium.

The cancellation of the event came as a complete surprise to security council Director Tom Trento, who stated, "The fact that the Marriott sent me an e-mail at 7 p.m. on a Friday night canceling our well-planned event made it very plain to me that something was up. I suspected there was more here than a breach of contract."

The lawsuit that the security council filed against Ocean Properties Ltd., owner and operator of the Delray Beach Marriott, contends there may have been external circumstances involving unnamed groups and individuals that pressured the Marriott into canceling the contract.

"We think there may be some evidence pointing that way," Trento said Wednesday at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the lawsuit was filed. “We’re not playing games here, and this breach of contract suit is going to enable us to use the full force of the law, and the full force of our capability to use our investigating assets to look into whether or not the Marriott unilaterally, within and of themselves, breached our contract, and if they did, for what reasons."

Just a few weeks after the scheduled event in South Florida, which was moved to nearby Boca Raton, Wilders' participation in another free speech summit and conference on Islam at a Loews hotel in Nashville, Tenn., in May, also was canceled, raising the Florida Security Council's concerns that something was amiss.

Negri refused to say what prompted his concerns, except to refer to the Web site of the New English Review, the group organizing the conference, which features articles that warn about radical Islam.

Negri wrote to the organizers, saying that the hotel had “not received any information related to a specific security threat concerning this event,” and declined to provide any justification for canceling it at the last minute.

"Currently, we have no evidence that CAIR or anyone pressured the Marriott into cancelling the Florida Security Council's Free Speech Summit," Trento said. "That is a possible theory in light of the facts."

Security council attorney Peter Feaman said, "This is a very clear-cut case of corporate breach. It’s hard to find a breach as overtly outrageous."

Conservative radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman, a prime organizer of the April free speech summit in South Florida, addressed the news conference Wednesday by saying, "Any efforts by any outside groups, Muslim or not, to suppress our right to free speech will not go unanswered. We simply will not allow anyone to repress our First Amendment rights, regardless of who they may be."