Five Oz imams gagged
`Un-australian': Controversial mufti Sheikh Taj El-Deen El-Hilali, one of five mosque imams banned from public speaking in Australia as of yesterday. Hilali caused an uproar last year when he compared Australian women to uncovered meat during a sermon at Saudi-funded Lakemba Mosque. Picture: www.skynews.com.au
Saturday, March 10, 2007
FIVE of Australia's most powerful Islamic clerics have reportedly been banned from speaking to the media in an attempt to stop local imams inflaming anti-Muslim sentiments with controversial comments.
The nation's Muslims say they feel under pressure after a number of radical clerics inflamed tensions earlier this year by airing extremist views about women, jihad and Jews.
The Lebanese Muslim Association has gagged the imams from Lakemba Mosque in Sydney to stop them delivering "anti-Australian" messages, the country's News Limited newspapers reported yesterday. The association was unavailable for comment.
One daily said the association had sent a letter to the imams demanding they "pause and desist" from talking to the media, especially Arabic-speaking outlets.
It said the imams had been warned they could lose their positions as spiritual leaders at the nation's largest mosque if they defied the association.
Association president Tom Zreika told the newspaper that the letter had been issued to end "perceived un-Australian viewpoints given by some clerics".
"Most of our clerics are selected on the basis that they have Australian values and Australian characteristics. Some of them have not (lived) up to that," he said.
"We want them to stay apolitical," he said.
Zreika, who did not return telephone calls, mentioned no clerics by name.
In January one of Australia's top Muslim clerics, Taj El-Din Hilaly at the Lakemba mosque, was accused of justifying rape in a 2006 Ramadan sermon in which he said unveiled women were like uncovered meat.
A week later came news of an Australian Muslim cleric urging children to be martyrs for Islam and referring to Jews as pigs in a series of DVDs, sparking government condemnation and further straining tensions between the nation's small, mainly Sunni, Muslim community of some 280,000 people and 20 million non-Muslims.
Muslims have been in Australia for more than 200 years. Reuters
The nation's Muslims say they feel under pressure after a number of radical clerics inflamed tensions earlier this year by airing extremist views about women, jihad and Jews.
The Lebanese Muslim Association has gagged the imams from Lakemba Mosque in Sydney to stop them delivering "anti-Australian" messages, the country's News Limited newspapers reported yesterday. The association was unavailable for comment.
One daily said the association had sent a letter to the imams demanding they "pause and desist" from talking to the media, especially Arabic-speaking outlets.
It said the imams had been warned they could lose their positions as spiritual leaders at the nation's largest mosque if they defied the association.
Association president Tom Zreika told the newspaper that the letter had been issued to end "perceived un-Australian viewpoints given by some clerics".
"Most of our clerics are selected on the basis that they have Australian values and Australian characteristics. Some of them have not (lived) up to that," he said.
"We want them to stay apolitical," he said.
Zreika, who did not return telephone calls, mentioned no clerics by name.
In January one of Australia's top Muslim clerics, Taj El-Din Hilaly at the Lakemba mosque, was accused of justifying rape in a 2006 Ramadan sermon in which he said unveiled women were like uncovered meat.
A week later came news of an Australian Muslim cleric urging children to be martyrs for Islam and referring to Jews as pigs in a series of DVDs, sparking government condemnation and further straining tensions between the nation's small, mainly Sunni, Muslim community of some 280,000 people and 20 million non-Muslims.
Muslims have been in Australia for more than 200 years. Reuters
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