Category Archives: Australia

Left too soft on Islam, claims Aussie journalist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

James Button“Sitting in his office in Antwerp, Filip Dewinter says he wants to keep religion out of public life, protect free speech, promote democracy and ensure the equality of men and women.

“He talks like a progressive. But as head of the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party, which gets 20 per cent of the votes in the Flemish half of Belgium, he is one of the most far-right politicians in Europe. His adviser hands me a leaflet showing a minaret with a red line through it. ‘Stop Islamising’, the slogan demands. ‘No mosques in our neighbourhood.’ …

“Islam is the greatest challenge to old politics since the fall of communism. It has scrambled categories of right and left. The right steals the left’s language to allege that Muslims do not fit in because they do not respect Western values of pluralism, women’s rights and even gay rights….

“The populist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was often labelled right-wing but said, fairly or unfairly, that he was hostile to Islam because he did not want to ‘have to go through the emancipation of women and homosexuals all over again’. He entered politics partly out of rage at young Muslim men smashing the windows of his gay bar.

“Left liberals, meanwhile, are thrown into confusion, or worse. In 2004, the left-wing Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, hosted a visit by Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim cleric whose fatwas endorse wife-beating and the murder of homosexuals….

“The left rightly points out that most Muslims are not extremist. Yet it is so afraid of appearing racist or asserting Western cultural superiority that it seems unable to acknowledge any problems associated with the Muslim faith at all….

“Responding to both radical and fundamentalist forms of Islam gives the democratic left a chance to rediscover its core beliefs. It should not cede ownership of Western values to the right, values that the left fought for centuries to create.”

James Button in the Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 2007

Evangelical Christians plan anti-Islam conference in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An evangelical church leader who blamed bushfires in February on Victoria’s abortion laws will address an anti-Muslim Christian conference alongside the Reverend Fred Nile and state Liberal MLC David Clarke this year.

Mr Nile invited the leader of the Catch the Fire ministries, Pastor Danny Nalliah, to address the National Conference for all Concerned Christians on November 21 on the theme ”Australia’s Future and Global Jihad”, an event Mr Nile said was about ”strengthening Australia’s Christian heritage”.

”We are concerned with the conflict between Islam and Christianity that is happening around the world,” Mr Nile said.

Mr Nalliah told the Herald the alleged terrorist plot on Holsworthy barracks by men with links to the Somali terrorism group al-Shabab showed why Christianity should be protected ”as the core value of the nation”.

”At some point we have to draw the line and say enough is enough,” he said. ”The nation has to stand for its Christian values, irrespective of whether all people practise Christianity or not.”

Mr Nalliah will deliver a speech on the topic ”Is the West being de-Christianised?”

Sydney Morning Herald, 10 August 2009

Islamic school ban sparks protest in Sydney

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hundreds of people have protested against a government’s decision to scrap plans to build an Islamic school in Australia’s biggest city, Sydney. Parents and prospective students have said the decision was unfair and racist.

Plans to build an Islamic school for 1,200 students in the Sydney suburb of Bass Hill survived objections from residents, the local council and legal challenges only to be scrapped at the last minute by the New South Wales government. Construction was due to begin but the state has intervened to buy back the land it sold several years ago.

Busloads of angry parents and their children have demonstrated outside the education department, calling on the authorities to allow the project to go ahead. A spokesman for the protestors, Rafik Hussein, says the government has made a big mistake. “We do not accept that decision. It is un-Australian,” Mr Hussein said

Some campaigners have said the debate has been laced with racial and religious intolerance. Supporters of the plan to build the Islamic school believe that residents’ concerns about noise and traffic congestion have become a euphemism for prejudice.

BBC News, 27 July 2009

See also ABC News, 24 July 2009

Muslim woman ‘told to take off veil’ by bus driver in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing a pink, floral niqab, which covers her hair and lower face, when she tried to board a bus in Greystanes, an outer suburb of the Astralian city.

“As I was stepping onto the bus the driver said ‘You can’t get on the bus wearing your mask’,” she told the Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper. When she explained it was religious dress, the woman said the driver responded: “Sorry, it’s the law.”

“I told him it wasn’t the law and he said ‘You have to show me your face,'” she said. “I said to him, ‘There’s no difference between me and that lady sitting there who chooses to not wear what I’m wearing’.”

The bus company, Hillsbus, said the driver was being questioned over the claims.

Daily Telegraph, 24 July 2009

Is this the end of Christianity in England?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One way or another, the lights seem to be going out for Christianity in England. If the secularists do not destroy the church there, the Islamists are happy to have a go at it. Just last week it was announced that the BBC has appointed a Muslim to be ‘the Head of Religion and Ethics’. This is simply the latest in a long list of Islamist initiatives which may well turn England into a Muslim nation. As Melanie Philips documented in her important book, Londonistan, the Islamisation of England is steadily rolling on.”

Christian Today, 22 May 2009

Australia: churches unite against Islamic school

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Camden_Islamic_school_protestFour Christian churches have joined in an unprecedented attack on the Islamic faith in an attempt to stop a Muslim school being built.

Calling the religion an ideology driven by world domination, a submission to the Land and Environment Court yesterday said a proposed school at Camden was a “beachhead” in Islamic takeover of southwestern Sydney, threatening the Australian way of life.

The attack, co-signed by local heads of Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian and the Evangelical Sisters of Mary churches, formed the spearhead of Camden City Council’s defence to a court challenge over its rejection of a development application for the Muslim school.

“Islam is not simply a private religion. It is driven by a powerful political agenda, it is an ideology with a plan for world domination,” the letter said. “The Quranic Society application to establish an Islamic school in Camden is typical of a regularly repeated pattern to form a beachhead in an area for the development of a sub-culture which, for the most part, regards its own legal system as superior to the current Australian law.”

They said the Muslim community would seek to dominate public space in Camden “as we have seen in Auburn, Bankstown, Lakemba and more recently Liverpool”.

The provocative submission was penned by Camden’s Baptist Pastor Brian Stewart, St John’s Anglican Rector Tony Galea, Presbyterian minister Warren Hicks and Sisters of Mary’s sisters in charge Sister Simone and Sister Gideona.

Use of the letter is a turnaround from previous claims that the council’s ruling was on the grounds of traffic congestion.

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Police dismiss ‘forest jihad’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australian police Wednesday dismissed any suggestion the wildfires that have killed more than 180 people could have been started by Islamic militants waging “forest jihad“.

Police believe some of the fires that ripped through southeast Australia since the weekend were started by arsonists, but a spokesman said there was no suspicion they were Islamic terror attacks.

“None at all, absolutely nothing, zero,” Superintendent Ross McNeill told AFP. “We usually rank possibilities on a scale of 0 to 10 – this would be on a negative scale,” he said.

AFP, 11 February 2009

Australian retail lobby slams call for hijab shop ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A national retail lobby boss has taken a swipe at Queensland retailers for backing calls to ban Muslim women wearing traditional hijabs in shops.

The state’s retail association came out in support of Brisbane’s 4BC radio presenter Michael Smith after he claimed on Wednesday that wearing the hijab or burqa posed a security risk. The Queensland body says the ban should be in line with riders being forced to remove their helmets when entering a store or bank.

But the National Retailers Association, which has no association with the Queensland organisation, has rejected calls for the ban. “I think it’s a bit of dog whistle,” executive director Richard Evans told ABC Radio, adding there was no evidence to support claims the wearing of hijabs was a security concern for shopkeepers.

He accused the Queensland retail group of trying to categorise a certain group of women and create fear among them. “It’s outrageous, to be honest with you, absolutely outrageous. It diminishes not only those folks who wear those outfits, but diminishes all of us.”

AAP, 16 January 2009

Australia – groups say veil ban unlawful, unfairly targets Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shopkeepers are demanding sunglasses, baseball caps and religious face veils be banned to guard against criminals trying to hide their identities.

The Queensland Retailers Association yesterday declared its members should have the right to ban customers from wearing any clothing that obscured faces. But the proposed ban has outraged civil libertarians, Islamic groups and Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Commission. They say the move would be unlawful and unfairly target Muslims and teenagers.

QRA executive director Scott Driscoll said retailers were increasingly concerned they could not identify robbers and thugs whose faces were hidden by headgear. “This is about ensuring a more safe and secure retail environment for all and being able to readily identify any and all perpetrators of armed holdups or shop theft,” he said.

But critics – including federal Labor MP Graham Perrett, who represents the multicultural electorate of Moreton in Brisbane’s south – attacked Mr Driscoll’s call as unfounded and unnecessary. “Kids in hoodies, Muslim women wearing face veils, they are simply not an issue for the retailers I speak to,” Mr Perrett said.

Queensland police have no record of any robbery committed by a person wearing a Muslim face veil.

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Aussie radio announcer accused of anti-Islamic remarks over hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

4BC RadioA Brisbane radio station may have to explain why it should keep its licence after an announcer was accused of making anti-Islamic comments.

Former Victorian police officer, now 4BC drive-time announcer, Michael Smith called for Muslim women who wear an Islamic hijab in public to be fined for offensive behaviour. He made the remarks on-air and on the 4BC website, saying: “Any reasonable person would find this offensive.” Islamic Council of Queensland president Suliman Sabdia said Mr Smith’s remarks amounted to “a clear case of intolerance”.

Under the Commercial Radio Code of Practice, a licensee must not broadcast a program likely to incite hatred against or vilify any person or group on the basis of age, ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual preference, religion, or disability. Christine Donnelly from the Australian Communications and Media Authority said Mr Smith’s comments could be a breach of the Code of Practice.

4BC general manager David McDonald said Mr Smith’s remarks were not intended to be anti-religion or anti-Muslim.

Courier-Mail, 14 January 2009

Update:  See also “Retailers back shock jock Michael Smith’s call for hijab ban” at News.com.au, which reports:

“A radio announcer’s call for a ban on Islamic hijabs has been backed by the Retailers Association. The body has called for all hijabs, helmets and hoodies to be banned in shops and banks for security purposes…. Retailers association executive directorScott Driscoll said it had been a long accepted practice to require customers to remove helmets and other identity obscuring headwear when entering a shop or bank. ‘Retailers should not have to fear any form of retribution or backlash for requiring the removal of any obscuring headwear, including hijabs, as a condition of entry’, Mr Driscoll said.”