Category Archives: Australia

Anti-Muslim preacher ‘prepares’ Australian politician for prime ministership

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peter CostelloThe leader of a Christian group that advocates the destruction of mosques, casinos and bottle shops has met Peter Costello to “prophetically prepare” the Treasurer for the prime ministership.

Mr Costello and John Howard held private meetings with Catch the Fire leader Danny Nalliah in August, the same month the Prime Minister met with the leaders of the Exclusive Brethren, which prohibits voting and modern technology.

Mr Nalliah said in a letter to Christians that the Lord had told him to spend “personal time” with Mr Howard and to prepare Mr Costello as the “future prime minister”.

The Catch The Fire ministries sparked a row with the Islamic Council of Victoria in 2002 when it claimed in a newsletter that Muslims were demons training to make Australia an Islamic state, that the Koran promoted violence and that Muslims derived money from drug dealing.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Mr Nalliah and colleague Daniel Scot had vilified Islam under the state’s 2002 Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. However, the Victorian Court of Appeal quashed the order, ruling the VCAT had not used the proper legal test for incitement and so sent it back for a review, where the dispute was mediated.

Mr Costello wrote a letter of support to Mr Nalliah during his legal battle.

The Australian, 8 October 2007

Australian Labor Party hits out over attitudes to Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ALPThe Federal Opposition has called on political leaders to stop equating Islam with terrorism, saying the support of Australia’s Muslim community is critical to fighting extremism. Seeking to differentiate Labor from the Government on national security, homeland security spokesman Arch Bevis called for “responsible leadership” in tackling fundamentalism.

He said Australia’s Muslim community was the country’s greatest asset in fighting terrorism, pointing out that Australian Muslims had provided essential information that prevented attacks in the past. “We are in real danger of losing that support as political leaders, community leaders and the media opt for simplistic and ultimately harmful characterisations that juxtapose ‘terrorist’ with ‘Muslim’,” Mr Bevis said.

The Age, 5 October 2007

For an alternative Australian view see ASSIST news service, 4 October 2007

‘A British company welcomes its future overlords’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bakery giants Greggs have installed a Muslims-only toilet at their new Scottish headquarters – despite the fact that no Muslims work there. Workers at the state-of-the-art factory were shocked when they were given a tour of the building and told a cubicle had been fitted for the use of Muslim employees.

But staff at the new £15million plant labelled the decision “political correctness gone mad”. One said: “We were being given a guided tour of the new factory before moving there when they told us that they had a toilet for use only by Muslims. I couldn’t believe, everybody was stunned because we don’t know of any Muslims who are working here. I don’t think anybody is really angry about it, but there just doesn’t seem to be any need for it. This sort of things is just political correctness gone mad.”

Another worker said: “The toilet just looks like a ceramic hole in the ground. I don’t think it will be getting much use and I don’t see why we couldn’t all just use the same toilet anyway. This sort of thing creates divisions between the workers.”

Daily Express, 21 September 2007

Of course, this sort of report is seized on by the far Right to back up their paranoid racist fantasies about the “Islamisation” of the UK.

See BNP Regional Voices, 21 September 2007 and Stormfront, 20 September 2007

And right-wing Australian blogger Tim Blair reports the story under the headline “A British company welcomes its future overlords“.

Australian Muslims slam Hanson policy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pauline HansonPauline Hanson’s “chances of winning are next to none” and her divisive policy could incite anti-Muslim assaults, a pro-Muslim activist says. Executive Director of the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations, Kuranda Seyit, said Ms Hanson’s new anti-Muslim policy platform was simply “fear-mongering and a grab for attention”. “It’s very sad any person who is in the public arena should abuse a minority community for their own benefit.”

Ms Hanson said her new Pauline’s United Australia Party will look at “putting a moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia”. Sydney-based Mr Seyit said she’s just ”jumping on the (anti-Muslim) bandwagon” and “she’s grabbing at straws”. “Indirectly she could be responsible for an assault or attack.”

Mr Seyit was equally scathing of anti-Islam thinker Dr Wafa Sultan, who recently met Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Deputy Opposition Leader Julia Gillard. Syrian-born Dr Sultan is a US-based psychiatrist who spreads the message that there is no difference between moderate and extremist Muslims.

Mr Seyit criticised Dr Sultan’s blanket assertions of an “evil Islam” and dismissed her as simply being a public figure with no legitimacy or credibility. “She is speaking without any authority,” he said. “She is blackening the name of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world who live in harmony and peace in their societies. How can you suggest that all Muslims are evil? It’s ludicrous! You can’t paint the whole Muslim world with one brush.”

Mr Seyit said Muslims have lived in Australia for almost the past one and a half centuries, and our society reaps major benefits from their involvement.

Courier-Mail, 24 August 2007

Muslim immigration likened to bird flu

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A NSW Senate candidate has compared the immigration of Muslims to Australia to the bird flu and says it should stop. Christian Democratic Party (CDP) Senate candidate Paul Green called today for a  moratorium on Muslim immigration while a study on its social impacts was carried out.

He said it would be easier to carry out such a study with the country’s Muslim population at 300,000, rather than three million at a later date. A study would also give the Australian people a chance to have a say on the immigration program, Mr Green said.

“If there was bird flu coming from a people’s group across the nation would we not halt, assess the risk management of what it means to Australia and then assess the factors and then say, is it not safe to continue that or withhold it until it is dealt with,” he said. Mr Green said Australia would suffer the same fate as “Britain, France and Holland” unless the study was carried out.

Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile said his party’s immigration policy also called on a priority for Christians who have been persecuted, particularly in Muslim countries, to be allowed into Australia. “It’s a very broad policy, and it is certainly not racist,” Mr Nile said. Mr Nile said he believed the Federal Government was already starting to adopt some of the CDP policies.

AAP, 23 August 2007

Australian racist politician targets Muslim immigration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pauline Hanson (2)Pauline Hanson, a former right-wing lawmaker who shot to popularity in the 1990s on a policy of curbing Asian migration to Australia, announced Wednesday she is registering a new political party that adds Muslims and refugees to her list of unwanted residents.

The 53-year-old firebrand plans to run for the Senate as a candidate of the new party, Pauline’s United Australia Party, in elections due around October. “I think we need to have a look at our immigration levels and I’d like to put a moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia,” Hanson told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Wednesday.

She said Australia also needs to change its international humanitarian commitments so it can reject “refugees in this country that bring in diseases, who are incompatible with our lifestyle”. Hanson said she still stood by her first speech to Parliament in 1996 when she famously warned that Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians”.

Associated Press, 15 August 2007

‘Infidel’ author: Islam, West incompatible

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi AliWASHINGTON – A former member of the Dutch parliament whose life has been threatened by Muslim radicals warns that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was raised as a Muslim in Somalia, but renounced Islam and moved to Europe, a story she recounts in her autobiography, titled “Infidel.” She moved to the United States last year.

In a speech Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, Ali urged journalists to recognize that all religions are not equal, and that Islam is violent, intolerant and oppresses women.

Ali said she was brought up believing in “a ferocious aggressive god,” but is now an atheist. She said Islam is growing because Saudi Arabia and Iran finance Muslim schools and mosques, while Christian churches have lost their missionary zeal.

CBN News, 19 June 2007

Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s speech here

For the impact of Hirsi Ali’s visit to Australia, see Herald Sun, 20 June 2007

Australia’s neo-conservatives target books on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Howard and Bush“The Howard government recently outdid its Western masters in the war on terror, announcing that it would begin banning and restricting materials that it deemed to be promoting ‘terrorism’….

“The threat to reinstate the old practice of confiscating reading materials has come true. In one recent case, Australian customs seized several titles that had been sent by a Malaysian publisher to a Muslim bookseller in downtown Sydney.

“Among them is one titled A Young Muslim’s Guide to the Modern World by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a US-based Iranian-born academic who is not even remotely political in most of his works, as well as another book on everyday Muslim do’s and dont’s which has become almost a household name among Muslims: Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam.

“Although the books have since been returned, probably after the Australian authorities realised how silly they had been to confiscate them at the first place, it shows just how strongly panic alarms can be set off by anything that sounds Islamic….”

Muslimedia, June 2007

Muslim girl’s headscarf airbrushed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim schoolgirl’s traditional headscarf was airbrushed from a class photograph, a parliamentary inquiry has heard. A state parliamentary inquiry into dress codes and school uniforms yesterday heard several Muslim students had been discriminated against because of their dress.

Islamic Council of Victoria executive committee member Sherene Hassan said the student wore her hijab in a class photograph, but it was airbrushed so it would not stand out. “You can imagine that was quite demoralising,” Ms Hassan said. Ms Hassan also told the inquiry one Victorian student was told she would not be admitted to school if she wore her hijab. “That individual was so keen to attend that school she decided not to wear her headscarf,” she said. While the majority of schools supported students who wore the headgear, some teachers needed more understanding of Islam, she said.

Herald Sun, 5 June 2007

Anti-Islamic writer stirs hatred, Muslims warn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A visit to Sydney by a controversial Somali writer who calls the prophet Mohammed a pedophile and says Islam is inferior to Western culture has outraged Muslims, who accuse her of inciting hatred. Ayaan Hirsi Ali will arrive in Sydney today amid tight security normally reserved for foreign dignitaries or royalty. Her writings and talks focus on what she calls the backwardness of Islamic culture and the persecution of Muslim women.

University of Technology Sydney Islamic law lecturer Jamila Hussain said Hirsi Ali’s ideas were extreme and stigmatised Muslims. “I think she’d be better staying where she came from,” Ms Hussain said. “I’ve read enough of her thoughts. It’s a narrow and radical opinion, and I don’t agree with it. She’s obviously had some dreadful experiences, but they’re not typical.”

News.com.au, 29 May 2007