Category Archives: Australia

Australian Muslims decry detention, questioning powers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australian Muslims have decried anti-terror security measures as creating a climate of fear and apprehension among the Muslim minority in the country.

“We want to live in a country where I feel proud to be Australian, belong to this land, where I have rights like any other persons,” Ali Roude, the deputy chairman of the Islamic Council of New South Wales, told a parliamentary panel reviewing the measures on Monday, June 6.

“Not always targeted, not always seen as a possible threat to Australia’s security, which is the feeling at the moment,” he was quoted as saying by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Roude complained that Australian Muslims feel targeted by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), which has been given powers to detain people on terror-related suspicion for up to seven days and question them for up to 48 hours without charges.

Other sweeping powers also allow the security agencies to hold Australians even if they are not suspected of criminal behaviors.

Islam Online, 7 June 2005

Australian law targets Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australia’s espionage chief has agreed with Muslim leaders that tough new laws seem to single out Muslims. However, Dennis Richardson, head of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization, told the Joint Parliamentary Committee that he made no apology for it, the Herald Sun newspaper reported Friday.

UPI report, 20 May 2005

See also “ASIO chief defends anti-terror laws”, The Age, 20 May 2005

Robert Spencer applauds Richardson’s “refreshing directness and honesty”.

Dhimmi Watch, 21 May 2005

Muslim dress focus of Sydney debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A leading Australian politician has called for an end to public debate about a high school student who has won the right to wear a Muslim garment in class.

Yasamin Alttahir, 17, was placed on detention after she refused to stop wearing an ankle-length manto to Auburn Girls’ High School in Sydney. The school eventually agreed to let her continue wearing the religious garment after she obtained a permission note from her parents.

Bob Carr, premier of New South Wales state, has supported Alttahir’s right to dress according to her faith. “Let’s tolerate the difference in our community,” he told reporters. “Young women, conservatively presented, not dressed like Britney Spears, turning up to school.”

Carr called for an end to media debate about Alttahir, an Iraqi-born Shia Muslim, who has been accused of being a troublemaker by some talkback radio presenters for defying school uniform policies.

“I just think we’ve got to be careful that we don’t traumatise a young woman who’s at school to get her education and training and set herself up for life,” he said. “I think we should give the issue a rest.”

Al-Jazeera, 17 May 2005

Pastor: no apology to Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One of two Christian pastors found guilty of vilifying Muslims has vowed to go to prison rather than apologise.

The Islamic Council of Victoria want the offending pastors to acknowledge a finding that their comments incited hatred and severe ridicule of Muslims.

But the pastors’ ministry, Catch the Fire, rejects the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal finding. They are appealing to the Supreme Court on the basis that VCAT deputy president Michael Higgins was biased against the evangelical group.

David Perkins, for Catch the Fire Ministries, yesterday submitted to Judge Higgins that he had “ridiculed” pastor Daniel Scot’s religious beliefs.

“We have a pending action in the Supreme Court to which your Honour is a party,” he told the judge. Judge Higgins replied that he regarded his being made a party as “inappropriate.”

Mr Scot told the Herald Sun yesterday he could not and would not give any acknowledgment or apology that his conscience would not allow, and was prepared for jail.

He said his nephew was killed in Pakistan by Islamic extremists. “This is what Muslims do when they follow their religion,” he said, before suggesting he was the subject of Christian victimisation.

Religion News Blog, 4 May 2005

Robert Spencer rallies to the defence of this hero of free speech: “He was convicted on false pretenses. He has nothing for which to apologize.”

Dhimmi Watch, 5 May 2005

For the background to the case, see here.

Calls mount for Australian state to rescind religious hatred law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A campaign to rescind a law against religious hatred in the Australian state of Victoria is winning growing support from churches since two evangelical Christians were found guilty of vilifying Muslims.

CNS News, 31 March 2005

For the background, see here.

No prizes for guessing Robert Spencer’s views on this. See here and here.

And worth noting that evangelical Christian groups have come out against a religious hatred law in Britain. See here.

Christian pastors found guilty of vilifying Islam in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Christian evangelical pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot have been found guilty of condoning and promoting racist and vilifying remarks against Islam and the Muslim community. They were convicted in the Australian state of Victoria under a law against inciting religious hatred.

Scot told a seminar in 2002 that the “Muslims’ Qur’an is promoting violence, killing and looting and that Muslims were liars and demons”. He further claimed that Muslims are drawing up a plan of violence and terror to overrun the western democracies, warning that Australia would be turned into an Islamic nation over the increasing numbers of Muslims in the European country

Nalliah wrote that Muslim refugees were being granted visas to Australia while Christians who suffer persecution in Islamic nations were refused refugee visas. He also referred to the high birth rate among Muslims in Australia at a time the birth rate in general was dropping.

Islam Online, 17 December 2004

CNS News, 17 December 2004

Australian Muslim prayer hall site vandalized

Posted on by Eddie Truman

SYDNEY — The site of a controversial Muslim prayer hall was vandalized on Thursday with pigs’ heads skewered on stakes and pork offal smeared throughout the building.

Developer Abbas Aly said builders renovating the hall at Annangrove discovered the vandalism when they arrived at work on Thursday morning. “Everyone’s mostly upset, it’s a very un-Australian thing to happen,” he said. “But this won’t put us off.”

The prayer hall attracted fierce opposition when it was first proposed in 2002, with the local Baulkham Hills Council receiving an unprecedented 5,000 letters from residents who did not want the building.

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