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April 15, 2006

Australia: The Islamist Threat From Within

Much has been written on the activities of Hizb-ut Tahrir, the extreme Islamist group, banned in most countries of the Middle East, which seeks to overthrow governments to establish a Muslim Caliphate, which would ultimately work to subjecting the globe to the rule of Islam.

We provided a brief sketch of Hizb ut-Tahrir in December. The group was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 by an Islamic jurist, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani. It has inernational status, and has active branches in the UK, Denmark, Bangladesh, the US, Canada, Indonesia and Australia.

It is illegal in Egypt, where three individuals from Britain were jailed and apparently tortured in 2004, being released on March 1 this year. Most Middle Eastern countries make Hizb ut-Tahrir illegal, as even Muslim countries fear the effects of a group which actively campaigns for the overthrow of their governments.

The group is banned in Germany, in Holland, and in February 2003, they were banned Russia, leading to 29 of their members currently being in prison. They are banned in Bashkortastan and Tajikistan.

Even in Pakistan, where extreme Islamist parties are allow to function with near-impunity, Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned in January this year.

Why such governmental animosity against the group? If one looks at their actions in countries where they are legal, their behaviour is vile and oppressive. In Denmark, Fadi Abdullatif was given a 60 day suspended jail term for distributing racist propaganda in October 2002. He had utilised passages from the Koran to argue for violence against Jews. As the BBC:

In March and April 2002, Hizb Ut Tahrir handed out leaflets in a square in Copenhagen, and at a mosque. The leaflet, which also appeared on the Danish groups internet site, makes threats against Jews, using a quote from the Koran urging Muslims to 'kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have been turned you out.' The leaflet also said, 'The Jews are a people of slander...a treacherous people... they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context.' And the leaflet describes suicide bombings in Israel as "legitimate" acts of "Martyrdom".

Currently Fadi Abdullatif is again awaiting trial, charged with threatening the Danish government for this call to "eliminate your rulers if they stand in your way", referring to his calls for Muslims to go to Iraq to fight against coalition troops.

In Britain the group has been officially banned from University campuses, following visious campaigns of intimidation against Muslim students, who are threatened and pressured to wear the hijab, or Muslim headscarf. Though outlawed, the group has tried to bypass restrictions by posing as a group calling itself Stop Islamophobia. UK gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell received numerous death threats from Hizb ut-Tahrir representatives throughout the 1990s.

In Bangladesh, the group has been responsible for most of the protests about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. In February, thsy organised a march in Dhaka, in which banners carried the slogans: "Death to those who degrade our beloved prophet!", "Hang culprits" and also demanded the expulsion of EU ambassadors from Muslim countries.

In Indonesia, Hizb ut-Tahrir is actively involved in persecution campaigns against Christians, and works in conjunction with the violent Front Pembela Islam to close down churches and prevent Christians from practicing their faith.

On Saturday, November 5 last year, we reported that at a carnival held in Melbourne that day, to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, Australian Hizb ut-Tahrir's members were distributing leaflets. These fliers claimed that Muslims had "enormously rejected their evil and corrupt rulers that the West have appointed over them, and they are looking forward to consigning them to the dustbins of history". The fliers also praised terrorist atrocities overseas where Muslims had "inflicted the most humiliating lesson on supposed superpowers".

The leaflets, which were condemned by the carnival's organisers, proclaimed: "Ally yourselves with those who work day and night to confront this war against Islam."

I recently did a Google search for information about Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Australia, and found very little openly available information. Hizb ut-Tahrir's obese spokesperson, Dr Imran Waheed had mentioned that Hizb ut-Tahrir was active in Australia, Canada and the US. We reported earlier that in August last year Australia's Attorney General, Philip Ruddock had considered moves to have Hizb ut-Tahrir banned. He decided that the group was not "terrorist".

Ruddock appears to have looked at the group's propaganda, and not their track record. The group claims to renounce violence officially, but it certainly supports terror and violence. It regards suicide attacks against Israeli civilians as "justifiable".

My search for information on Australian activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir was rewarded yesterday, following an article in Robert Spencer's Dhimmiwatch. This alluded to a commentary by Andrew Bolt, published in yesterday's edition of the Australian Herald Sun.

Mr Bolt's article is eye-opening. He describes how in February, Australia's Treasurer Peter Costello was demonised for telling Muslims that if they did not accept Australian values, they should not come to the country. Costello is nothing if not consistent. He made similar comments in August and November last year.

Bolt describes how in response to Costello's calls for Muslims to have loyalty to Australia, for which he was called an "Islam-basher", the declared attitudes of official Muslim groups are not dissimilar:

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils declared "Islam law teaches that when you go into a country you embrace the laws of that country".

The Islamic Council of Victoria said: "Muslims are Australians first."

The Lebanese Muslim Association claimed the "majority of Muslims . . . accept Australian values".

But Andrew Bolt goes on to describe the values of a group of Australian members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who certainly do not subscribe to these values. Importantly, Hizb ut-Tahrir does not support democracy. Last week members were outside Bankstown Town Hall, and voicing their opposition to democratic values, secular society and Australia.

Usman Badar, who is president of the University of New South Wales Muslim Students Association declared that: "Western values are not worthy of human subscription.....Democracy sounds nice enough - not to a Muslim....Sovereignty is for none but Allah." He added: "Allah did not say....whatever the people want, we'll have this."

Badar said of secularism that "it relegates Allah to the margins of public life and places human beings above him. This, to put it blatantly, is as blasphemous as it gets.....The overriding commitment of a Muslim is to Allah, and Allah alone."

Hizb ut-Tahrir's commitment to bypassing and removing democracy is part of its modus vivendi - in Britain, the group has described Westminster as "the infidel parliament". Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr has said that: "These people manage to get at young people. I have spoken to parents who say they 'lost' their sons and daughters as a result." This did not stop pug-ugly pugilist MP Clare Short inviting the group into the "infidel parliament" on March 1.

But in Australia, Hizb ut-Tahrir are not the only Muslims who despise the culture they live in. On Wednesday, Australia's Daily Telegraph described the statements of 33-year old Khaled Cheikho, one of the terror suspects arrested in Sydney on November 8 last year.

Cheikho said that Australia would ultimately be ruled by Muslim law. He described democracy pejoratively, saying it was "full of shit". He also said "So you tell Howard this and pass it on to Bush the motherfucker, tell him (I'm) gonna come and chop him up."

He also announced that "Sharia law is gonna prevail throughout the land . . . You tell Howard this, tell him Islam is gonna rule this land.....The land, all the land is Allah's land, Allah created it and he's given it to Muslims and the Muslims are going to rule it."

The spiritual leader of Cheikho and his associates, 46-year old cleric Abu Nacer Benbrika has said "There are two laws -- there is an Australian law and there is an Islamic law."

Firebrand Sheikh Mohammed Omran, a cleric who runs a prayer centre in Melbourne's inner north, has said: "We believe we have more rights than you because we choose Australia to be our country and you didn't."

Benbrika, Omran and Cheikho can be dismissed, as can NSW Students Union and Hizb ut-Tahrir, as aberrations from mainstream Australian values, unrepresentative of the Muslim community as a whole. But Andrew Bolt eloquently points out that even the mainstream individuals who are regarded by mainstream media as "moderate" Muslim leaders have produced statements which would fit with Costello's descriptions of Muslims who did not espouse Australia's national values.

For example, Sheikh Faiz Mohamad, who runs the Glocal Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney, has said: "A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself." Nice...

We have already described how the self-styled Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj el-din el-Hilaly has said that the September 11 attacks were "God's work against the oppressor". Hilaly is imam of the Lakemba mosque in Sydney. Andrew Bolt says that the "Mufti" has blamed "Australian society" for the pack-rapes committed by Muslim Lebanese youths. At least the "Mufti" is soon to be deposed.

The spokesman for the "Mufti", one Keysar Trad has said: "The criminal dregs of white society colonised this country and...the descendants of these criminal dregs tell us that they are better than us."

Bolt summarises his piece with a quote from the brave and indomitable woman psychiatrist, who openly challenges Islamic intolerance, Wafa Sultan: "It is a clash between civilisation and backwardness, between the civilised and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 15, 2006 9:15 AM

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