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May 1, 2006

Australia: Muslim Body Purges Former Leaders

News from the Melbourne Age reports that a new broom has swept away most of the leadership of the Australian Federation Of Islamic Councils (AFIC). This body, which has been in existence for 42 years, is an umbrella group for various Islamic Councils across Australia, including Christmas Island. It claims to represent the voices of the 300,000 Muslims in Australia, but recently it has been accused of being "out of touch".

We reported on April 17 that a survey conducted by one its component groups, the Islamic Council of Victoria complained that the leadership of the AIFC was viewed by many Muslims as "sexist, secretive, unrepresentative and irrelevant," and was not regarded in high esteem by young people.

Now that the AIFC has had its elections, Dr Amir Ali, the former chairman, has ben ousted. His replacement is Rahim Ghauri (pictured) a schoolteacher from Perth. The new chairman promised today (yesterday in Australia) that the new and improved AIFC leaadership would pay special attention to women, the young and the elderly.

Ghauri, who is president of the Western Australian Islamic Council, also said that the AFIC wished to sooperate with the Australian Federal government and its agencies, but wasnted in return to be treated in a friendly way and "not as enemies".

The Age sates that only one of the former members in the eight-person leadership positions has remained, though it does name the person. It says four people were elected to the board, three of them new. These will now go on to co-opt five new members to the board.

Ghauri has said that some of the criticisms voiced in the survey carried out by the Islamic Council of Victoria were fair.

According to News.com.au, a seminar by AFIC at the weekend agreed to set up a youth council, to assist young people to integrate into Australian society. Ghauri said: "We were discussing it [a youth council] and we're going to put it into action. Muslim youth will co-ordinate with youths of other religions - that will help us to be real Australians and help our community. If we don't take care of our children ... they are tomorrow's Australians and tomorrow's Muslims. If they are involved and helped carefully and in a friendly way it will make things a lot better."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 1, 2006 11:57 AM

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