Abdi Nur was the first Somali source to speak with me after I wrote about Ilhan Omar in my “Her back pages” post of August 2016. I have met with him frequently over the past three and a half years and confirmed everything he has told me with other sources (including law enforcement) and other researchers (including, preeminently, Preya Samsundar and David Steinberg). Abdi is a widely followed reporter for the Somali community on Facebook. After telling the Omar saga to the Daily Mail’s Martin Gould for the story published last week, Abdi has gone to ground. Today he has posted the following message on Facebook and asked me to share it with Power Line readers. Abdi writes:
My name is Abdihakin Osman Nur and I live in Minneapolis Minnesota. I am an American citizen. I am the person who spoke to the media and said that Ilhan Omar married her brother and made legal papers for him to stay in America. I confirmed that the marriage was fraudulent and that I was personally aware since I was a close friend and neighbor to both Ahmed Hirsi and Ilhan Omar. It is also an open secret in the Minnesota Somali community but everyone is afraid of problems from supporters of Ilhan Omar, at least one of whom has a felony criminal record.
This issue started in August of 2016 and the first media person whom I spoke to was Scott Johnson, who writes for Power Line. I shared his posts on my Facebook [page] and I was met with vicious online harassment and threats including insulting me for being in a wheelchair and insults to my person as a disabled man. They [i.e., Abdi’s Somali harassers] caricatured me as wearing diapers. I finally decided to put them on all the things that they were doing in suppressing the information through intimidation and threats and so I told the writer of Daily Mail to put it on the record.
Since that day I have received veiled threats about my safety, insults online and threats of a set-up in which to have me locked up. I have had fake complaints to try and shut my Facebook [page] down. They have also told a media personality on YouTube to threaten me and she did so live on a YouTube video.
I would like to inform the public and the government of the USA. If anything were to happen to me and my safety that Ilhan Omar and her team will be responsible. I also ask for the support of the American people in case I’m set up or something happens to me because I have talked.
Thanks for your help and understanding.
Abdihakin Osman Nur
My Facebook name XERTA SHEKH
GOD BLESS AMERICA
_______________________________________________________________
This post was originally published at Powerline by Scott Johnson. Scott Johnson serves on the board of Alpha News
Scott Johnson
Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney who writes for Power Line and serves on the board of Alpha News.
