Category Archives: Australia

Australian Muslims slam ‘divisive’ test

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia’s values system. Australia’s peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the “Abrahamic tradition” or “universal values” would be less divisive ways of describing the nation’s moral base.

Dr Ali was backed by Democrats senator Lyn Allison, who said the answer to the question was highly debatable. But Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews stood firm on the merit of the question. Mr Andrews said Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage was indisputable historical fact. But Health Minister Tony Abbott confused the issue, saying the modern Australian values system was secular, or of no particular religion.

Herald Sun, 19 May 2007

Uncovering being Muslim in post-9/11 Melbourne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

With a predominantly Islamic population, Indonesia’s Muslims see their faith reflected at every turn: in media, in government policy, in education, even in fashion and food. But next door in Australia things are very different.

With little more than 1 percent of its population Islamic, there is little or no reflection of Australian Muslim society, except when something goes wrong. And that lack of positive societal recognition for one particular religious group is causing social ostracism for many Australian Muslims, particularly in these years following Sept. 11, 2001.

The fallout from that disaster half a world away has shaken Australia’s multicultural foundations, with ordinary Australian Muslims made social pariahs, as Chinese-Indonesians were denied Indonesian citizenship rights until recently, and as many Australian Aborigines are given unequal treatment simply for being black.

Jakarta Post, 24 April 2007

Australian media accused of Islamaphobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British firebrand Yvonne Ridley has accused Australia’s media of being hostile towards Muslims, as Labor demanded to know why the Islamic convert was allowed into the country.

The former investigative reporter, in Melbourne for a major religious conference, was quoted in news reports saying Australians were among the world’s worst Muslim haters. But Ms Ridley said her comments were wrongly recorded and she had no problem with the Australian people – only the Australian media, which she accused of Islamophobia.

“The time has come to change the media attitudes towards Muslims in this country,” she told the annual Australian Islamic Conference at the University of Melbourne, staged by non-profit Muslim group, Mercy Mission. “What I actually said to the journalist was there is a horrendous problem of Islamophobia in Australia – it isn’t the ordinary citizens, it’s the media.”

“It’s very, very sad the way the media has reacted,” she said. “Suddenly I’m no more a British journalist, I’m a firebrand Islamic convert. “I’ve always been quite outspoken in my views but I didn’t become an extremist until I put on a hijab.”

Meanwhile, Labor leader Kevin Rudd called on the federal government to explain why Ms Ridley was allowed to enter Australia.

AAP, 7 April 2007

Hicks case exposes ‘war on terror’ sham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“After five years of solitary confinement in a small metal cell, David Hicks pleaded guilty on March 26 to one of the two charges brought against him by US military prosecutors on March 1, to finally get out of the notoriously brutal US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Hicks’s case has revealed just what a sham the US-led ‘war on terror’ really is.

“For five years Washington, backed to the hilt by Canberra, has claimed that Hicks was one of the most dangerous ‘terrorists’ being held at Guantanamo. He was charged with offences that carrying life sentences. Now, under the plea bargaining deal, his US military prosecutors are talking about him being able to be ‘home before the end the year’. Indeed, on March 31, Hicks was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, with all but nine months of the sentence suspended. He will serve most of this in an Australian civilian prison.”

Green Left Weekly, 30 March 2007

Hizb ut-Tahrir ‘a threat’ in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbThe Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir – banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia but legal in Australia – has been identified as a potential threat to the nation.

Research has found it takes advantage of Australian tolerance to launch propaganda attacks on the country and that its adherents are primed to take the next step up to jihad, if called upon to do so.

The propaganda of the religious group, which is legal in Australia, encourages a level of religious hatred that could convince its followers to carry out terrorist acts, says the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. A paper by the think tank’s Anthony Bergin and Jacob Townsend says while Hizb ut-Tahrir does not advocate the use of terror – indeed forbids its members from engaging in terrorist acts – it uses the same radical terminology as al-Qa’ida.

The paper warns the group’s Australian operations need to be closely monitored, even though it defers the use of terror until a “caliphate”, or order to militant jihad, by a religious leader.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir may well act as a warm-up track for violent radicals”, it says. “Hizb ut-Tahrir advocates a revolutionary change to our social and political system. It encourages indirectly and sometimes more directly political violence by its inciting propaganda. It uses Australian tolerance to promote radical propaganda even against Australia itself.”

The Australian, 19 March 2007

Israeli ‘expert’ on Islam draws sell-out audiences in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Raphael Israeli (2)Controversial Islam expert Professor Raphael Israeli has delivered two sell-out lectures in Melbourne – but avoided the question of whether his grim warnings about Muslim population growth in Europe also applied to Australia.

Professor Israeli, a Hebrew University academic with more than 20 books to his name, told more than 360 people on Sunday night that Islam was at odds with the fundamental pillars that support a democracy.

In a talk sponsored by Issues of Concern for Justice and Society (ICJS), he said a clash between the Koran and democratic principles was inevitable because of Islam’s rigid adherence to shari’a law. Earlier, he told a separate audience of about 350 people that Turkey’s possible entry into the European Union (EU) could cause a major headache for Europe, effectively doubling the EU’s Muslim population.

The two talks proceeded despite a major controversy over Professor Israeli’s visit, triggered when the visiting academic told the AJN he believed the Australian Government should place a cap on Muslim immigrants.

One of the primary sponsors of the trip, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, withdrew its support following a storm of protest over the comments. But the State Zionist Council of Victoria (SZCV) and the Australian Friends of the Hebrew University continued to back the scholar, as did the Shalom Institute at the University of NSW, which initially brought the academic to Australia as a scholar-in-residence.

Members of Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror protested the SZCV’s support of Professor Israeli last Wednesday night, handing out flyers critical of his remarks and the council’s decision to give them voice.

“As an affiliate of the SZCV, we express our deepest disappointment at the council’s decision to co-sponsor this event,” the flyer said. “The suggestion that Australia should cap Muslim immigration to our country is racist and an allegation that we find deeply offensive and counterproductive.”

Australian Jewish News, 15 March 2007

‘Keep Muslims out of Australia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fred_NileAustralia should give priority to Christians wanting to flee persecution in Muslim countries the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, the Reverend Fred Nile, says. Mr Nile, a member of the NSW upper house, has called for a 10-year moratorium on Muslim immigration to Australia.

There had been no serious study of the potential effects on Australia of the more than 300,000 Muslims who are already here, he said. The CDP leader wants a study to look at the examples of the Netherlands and France, where the Muslim minority has become large enough to “flex its muscle”.

“The same thing is happening in our city of Sydney … they (Muslims) concentrate and virtually by population numbers they dominate that actual community,” he told Southern Cross Broadcasting today.

The NSW Greens called on the major parties to publicly reject Mr Nile’s call for an immigration moratorium and cancel any preference deals with his party. “Rev Nile’s statement makes NSW look ugly and racist,” Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said. “All public figures should distance themselves from such an unacceptable policy.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 2007

Australian Muslims announced on Monday, March 12, plans to form a political party to fight the spiraling Islamophobia in the country, opening the membership door for people of different faiths. “The political parties are focusing too much unfair attention on Muslims,” Kaysar Trad, spokesman of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia (IFAA), told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “We have to do whatever we can to make politicians focus on real issues rather than diversions on Muslims.”

Islam Online, 12 March 2007

Australian police investigate ‘anti-Islamic website’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Federal police are investigating an anti-Islamic website that calls on supporters across Australia to oppose a mosque planned for North Cairns.

The “Winds of Jihad” website, created by a Cairns man who calls himself Sheik Yer’Mami, includes instructions to “do whatever it takes to stop them (Muslims) from spreading their tentacles”. It also urges opponents of a mosque being built at 31 Dunn St, opposite the Pioneer cemetery, to launch a public campaign against the development.

The Far North’s Muslim spiritual leader Imam Abdul Aziz labelled the website as “vulgar”, saying he contacted the Australian Federal Police yesterday to alert them to the website. He said the AFP was investigating the website because of its offensive and racist content.

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Muslims threaten Australia’s identity, says Pell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cardinal George PellThe Muslim community is overly sensitive and is the only migrant group to have plotted violence against Australia, Catholic Archbishop Cardinal George Pell has claimed.

Dr Pell said integration was a “key tool” for a harmonious and secular democratic society. “Equal rights however, carry with them equal responsibilities – problems arise when minorities demand special consideration that places them outside the law as it applies to other citizens,” he said.

“Flexibility and adaptability are called for when refugees and immigrants arrive in our country but there is a limit in (adopting) minority demands beyond which a democratic host society cannot go without losing its identity.”

The Australian, 4 March 2007

For earlier statements on Islam by Cardinal Pell, see here and here.