Islamist Wilfredo Ruiz and his fake persona of ‘civil rights’ and diversity activist.

CAIR-Florida Communications Director Wilfredo Ruiz likes to call his organization a “civil rights group” and uses social media to denounce those who spread bigotry, yet Ruiz himself associates with individuals and groups who spread the same kind of hate. This past month, Ruiz did so once again, when he participated at an event hosted by the Darul Uloom mosque and moderated by the mosque’s imam Shafayat Mohamed, who has been thrown off different local boards for anti-gay speech and has claimed homosexual sex causes natural disasters.

On December 23, 2018, a panel discussion was held at the Pembroke Pines, Florida-based Darul Uloom Institute on the topic of ‘Religion and Politics in America.’ Darul Uloom is infamous for being a haven for a number of al-Qaeda operatives, including ‘Dirty Bomber’ Jose Padilla, who was a student at Darul Uloom, and now-deceased al-Qaeda Global Operations Chief, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, who was a prayer leader at Darul Uloom.

The participants of the forum included local politicians and Muslim community leaders. In over two-and-a-half hours, barely anything of substance or interest was uttered, though one participant, Imtiaz Mohammad, a recent candidate for Florida State House, slammed America and her citizens, saying “America [is] run on hate” and "American people are the most uneducated nation in the world." Panel participant Jay Schwartz, a Pembroke Pines City Commissioner, sat next to Imtiaz with his mouth closed, not saying a word in opposition.

One more participant at the forum that said nothing against Imtiaz’s outrageous statements was Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, the Communications Director for the Florida Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR has been linked, in large part, to the terrorist organization Hamas, both in its formation as a group and its fundraising activities. CAIR-Florida has emulated its national parent by co-sponsoring pro-Hamas rallies and by using extreme rhetoric aimed at demonizing Israel and her supporters.

Ruiz frequently uses social media to denounce what he claims to be hate. His targets are primarily Israelis and those whom he accuses of being ‘white supremacists.’ However, Ruiz is a tremendous hypocrite, as he surrounds himself with those who spread the worst manifestations of bigotry, including ‘white supremacy.’

According to the Facebook page of Ruiz’s personal blog, Analista Internacional, Ruiz founded the Puerto Rico and Connecticut chapters of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA) and is the group’s legal advisor. AMANA and its President, Sofian Zakkout, are notorious for championing former KKK leader David Duke. In July 2010, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned AMANA for featuring, on its official website, what the ADL called a “venomous” anti-Semitic Duke video. Even now, on the AMANA site, under a video discussing how ‘Israel has no right to exist,’ one can find yet another anti-Jewish Duke video.

In February 2016, Ruiz’s colleague Zakkout, who has repeatedly referred to Jews as “monkeys and pigs,” circulated on social media a report claiming that “the Holocaust was faked.” It begins: “The alleged ‘Holocaust’ of ‘6 million Jews’ at the hands of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist Germany during WWII is the biggest lie ever foisted upon humanity.” It was produced by The Realist Report, an anti-Jew, anti-black, anti-gay independent media outlet, which describes Hitler as “the greatest leader in modern Western history.”

A further example of Ruiz’s blatant ‘bigotry hypocrisy’ is his very participation at the Darul Uloom event. The moderator for the event, the founder and current imam of Darul Uloom, Shaikh Shafayat Mohamed, has a well-known history of actions against the gay community, which have resulted in him being thrown off a number of local boards.

On December 22nd, just one day prior to the Darul Uloom panel discussion, a deadly tsunami hit Indonesia. Nearly 14 years earlier, in February 2005, an article written by Shafayat was published on the Darul Uloom website, entitled ‘Tsunami: Wrath of God.’ In it, he claims that gay sex caused the 2004 Indonesian tsunami and that most Jews and Christians, whom he refers to as “People of the Book,” are “perverted transgressors.” The piece is still up on Darul Uloom’s website.

In an August 2015 speech he gave at Darul Uloom, titled ‘Quraan Torah Bible Forbid Man Marrying Man,’ Shafayat barks loudly, “The Bible says that if a man sleeps with a man, he should be killed!” He laments the existence of Muslim homosexuals, decrying, “Don’t deny it. They already got Muslim gay communities… They got it in London and they got it in America.” And finally, he admits/excuses being punished for his actions, saying, “Listen, I used to have a lot of positions in the board in Broward County and, because I spoke out on homosexuality, I got sacked from many boards, because there were a lot of gay people who said, ‘We don’t want him on that board,’ but I had a choice to sit in paradise or… sit on the board and go to hell.”

Why would Wilfredo Ruiz wish to contribute to an event headed by such a divisive man – prejudiced against homosexuals and others – as Shafayat Mohamed?

Following the June 2016 shooting that took place at the Pulse LGBT nightclub, in Orlando, Florida, perpetrated by Omar Mateen, Ruiz became the spokesman for the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce (ICFP), the radical mosque that Mateen attended. Like Darul Uloom, ICFP has been a haven for terror-related individuals, including ICFP congregant Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who in May 2014, drove a massive truck bomb into a restaurant in Syria.

Ruiz was brought in to speak out against any potential backlash that the mosque would suffer. Callously discounting the fact that Mateen had just shot and killed 49 innocent people over the simple fact that they were gay, Ruiz stated about the mosque, “This might be the main spot for a hate crime to occur in all the United States.”

The truth is that Wilfredo Ruiz cares nothing about fighting against bigotry, because his life is all about promoting it, from the people he associates with to the organizations he works for and is affiliated with. Ruiz’s deceitfulness should be obvious to every media outlet that wishes to interview him and every group that wishes for him to speak in front of its membership. The only hate that Wilfredo Ruiz speaks out against is the hate that he benefits from.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.