Islamaphobic Australians attack peaceful Aussie mufti

January 15, 2007 - Aussie mufti Sheik Taj al-Din Hilali's recent comments during an Egyptian TV interview have triggered more Islamaphobic outrage in Australia, with a number of politicians, including Federal Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone, laughing him off as an "irrelevance" or demanding he "stay in his native Egypt if did not like Australia."

Reiterating his view that the furore over his comments are a conspiracy against him led by politicians and the media, Sheik al-Hilaly said:

"Always upside down my speech. For bad intention. I say many, many times. I taught - love Australia or leave it. Australia is still the best country in world. We're intelligent people, (the) Australia nation."

Sheik Hilali was called an "embarrassment" by Prime Minister John Howard...

However Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilali has proclaimed his love for his adopted homeland and labelled it the "best country in the world". It seems Sheik al-Hilali has has once again been misinterpreted, demonised, his comments sensationalised for the sake of spectacle and fear. The Sydney Imam described his detractors as racist. "That is the racists talking," he said.

"I love Australia. I respect the Australian nationality, Australian society, the land of peace. Australia is the best country in the world."

Sheik al-Hilali was interviewed on Egyptian television last week. According to mainstream corporate media reports, Sheikh Hilali said:

"Anglo-Saxons came here in chains while we paid our way and came in freedom. We are more Australian than them. Australia is not an Anglo-Saxon country; Islam has deep roots in Australian soil that were there before the English arrived."

He also dubbed Prime Minister Howard as "Mr Me Too" - meaning Mr Howard needs instructions from the US before acting. Mr Howard said it was up to the Muslim community to deal with al-Hilali.

The executive director of the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations, said the comments did not represent the views of the majority of the Muslim community. "I would like to reiterate to all Australians, including our people of Anglo-Saxon heritage, that there is no substance to the idea that Muslims have more of a right to Australia than the early settlers," Kuranda Seyit said.

SUPPORT
The shiek's family say whilst they did not always agree with him, they believed he was entitled to his opinion, because Australia "fought wars to have freedom of speech".

"We know what he means, and we don't believe he deliberately meant to offend anyone," his son-in-law Mr Tocock said. "We know that the mufti loves this country, but we can understand how people can be offended by his comments. It doesn't help to bridge the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims."

John Heard, writes in the Australian, "whether or not the man should be allowed to say the things he does - or be deported or jailed for them, as some have suggested - is not the kind of discussion a mature democracy should indulge with a serious hearing. So why are we so threatened when the things he says don't square neatly with our view of ourselves?"

"Is it because it is becoming obvious that the sheik is right about some things? ... "al-Hilali's comments about Anglo-Saxons coming to Australia as convicts are, at least on the face of it, mostly accurate. White settlement did occur here because Britain needed a faraway island on which to dump its criminal class. Only an individual ignorant of Australian history would object to such comments on factual grounds, writes Mr Heard. "Only a blind nationalist would get steamed up about, rather than dismiss - even affectionately - the sheik's snobby tone..." (John Heard: Mufti's madness is true-blue larrikinism)

The corporate media created a furore late last year when Sheik Hilali's comments, made during a Ramadam sermon, were deliberately taken out of context and published across front pages of Australia's newspapers - despite the Muslim cleric repeatedly stating he "does not blame victims of rape for their predicament."

ai-Hilali's friend and confidant Keysar Trad said Australia as a nation had over-reacted and would have been more thick-skinned if the mufti had made those comments as a non-Muslim. "Nobody expects us to be so thin-skinned," Mr Trad said. "We're only like that because we find the mufti to be so exotic." Mr Trad said his friend was a proud Australian.

But other Muslim groups distanced themselves from the remarks, saying the sheik's extreme personal opinions did not represent the views of the majority of Muslims.

Sheik al-Hilali came to Australia in 1982 and was granted permanent residency in 1990. The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) appointed him Mufti of Australia in 1988. The AFIC, which has the power over the position of Mufti of Australia, is in receivership and fresh elections for a new executive board are not expected until next month.

AFIC's legal adviser, Haset Sali, labelled the sheik's recent comments on Egyptian TV as insane and said the comments had horrified thevast majority of Australian Muslims. Mr Sali, who was once a close mate, has become a bitter critic, said Australian Muslims needed a head mufti as much as they needed a "crocodile in the back garden" and described Sheik Hilali was like "a bull in a china shop..."

"In reality, Sheik Hilali is no longer the Mufti for Australia," Mr Sali said.

Sheik al-Hilali is expected to return home this week to confront a salivating pack of sensationalist media.

Sources:

NEWS.COM.AU
The Australian
Herald and Weekly Times - Don't hurry
Middle East Online
Wikipedia - Taj_El-Din_Hilaly
Sheikh's OK, say in-laws - The Age
John Heard: Mufti's madness is true-blue larrikinism
Muslim slams 'disgraceful' Hilali

Walk without Fear Rally - Brisbane

January 14, 2007 - Hundreds of people have gathered in a park on Brisbane's northside for a rally promoting safety on local bike paths and walkways. The Walk Without Fear rally was organised by local media in response to a spate of sex attacks on women using public pathways. Women turned up in droves for the rally at Kelvin Grove in the city to protest against at least two men who have attacked 38 women...

The Walk Against Fear rally was organised in response to a spate of sex attacks on women using public pathways. A number of police officers also attended.

The Courier-Mail reports that sexual predators who have terrorised dozens of women on Brisbane's bikeways in the past year may have been at a rally today where angry women warned they will be caught. Among those who gave their support at the rally, could have been the very people the women were protesting against, police said.

Acting Queensland Police Commissioner Dick Condor told the crowd that public awareness of the crimes is the key to arresting those responsible. Conder said it was possible the attackers themselves had been drawn to the event. "I wouldn't be surprised if they do turn up today," Mr Conder said. "People have been known in past to turn up to rallies and it's dangerous ground for them because there would be a number of people who have been subject to those assaults here today (who could recognise them)."

The attacks began in January last year and have included two rapes. They are thought to be the work of at least two men; a cyclist who gropes women as he rides past, and another more violent man who surprises his victims from behind.

Safety information and alert whistles were handed out in a bid to prevent more attacks, and police sketches of the offenders were provided in the hope someone recognised them.

Acting Premier Anna Bligh said police had been inundated with 454 calls offering information since a $50,000 reward was offered last week. "We are, I believe, getting closer and closer to solving these crimes but in the meantime we want to see people out on the pathways riding, walking, running, enjoying themselves."

Those who attended said they had come to show their support to the victims, send a message to the attackers and show their intention to keep exercising.

Phillipa Tziolis and Joanne Grey sported signs with police sketches of the attackers and the words "You will be caught, your days are numbered".

"We will not be stopped," Ms Tziolis said. "There's so much public outrage that so many attacks have taken place, that people will just be on the lookout for the offender or the offenders," Ms Grey said. "I think it's outrageous that we can't think that we'll be safe ... it needs to be stopped."

At least 36 women have been targeted on pathways in Brisbane's northside over the past 12 months. The Courier-Mail's Stephen Sealey said the newspaper had launched its Walk Without Fear campaign after the State Government revealed all leads in the assault cases had run cold. "This issue has struck a real nerve in the community and we have organised the rally... to give Brisbane people the chance to take a stand together," Mr Sealey said.

After the sexual assault of a girl, 16, near her Red Hill home on Tuesday, two women came forward to report attacks that occurred last year. "We believe it is quite possible we may get more historical complaints," said Detective Inspector Bob Hytch, who heads the investigation, called Operation Echo Shine. "Our plea is if people are out there and they have information, please come forward."

Det-Insp Hytch said extra police were called in late last week to cope with the amount of new information being supplied to his team. He would not comment on whether police had obtained the DNA of any of the attackers, but said: "Obviously, people are aware that we use DNA as an investigative strategy."

He said many of the women who had been attacked had fought back.

Sources:
Residents, police rally against bike path attacks - ABC News
Courier Mail Campaign
Women rally against fear - The Sunday Mail
Taking a stand on security - Sunday Mail
Wider investigation into sex attacks - Channel 7 News
Victims, police to rally against bike path attacks - The Australian

1000s of birds die around Esperance - Toxicity?

1000s of birds die around Esperance - Toxicity?

January 13, 2007 - WA government authorities believe a toxin may be responsible for the recent mystery deaths of about 5000 birds around Esperance. Toxic poisoning had emerged as the most likely cause of the deaths of thousands of birds around Esperance, 730km southeast of Perth. An autopsy being carried out by Department of Agriculture toxicologists on one of the latest casualties, will test for organochlorins, organophosphates and heavy metals...

The phenomenon has killed some 5000 birds since it was first reported in December. Populations of honeyeaters, wattle birds and miners have been hit. It was before the big December storm when Esperance residents first noticed large numbers of dead birds littering their streets and gardens.

The birds have been found vomiting and convulsing in bushland and suburban backyards over an extensive area. Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) Esperance nature conservation coordinator Mike Fitzgerald says toxic wetlands near Esperance are the most likely reason for the mass bird deaths.

Mike Fitzgerald said they were looking at "something that is pretty potent," he said. "This is not a normal situation. The common thing that we have seen and heard is that the affected birds have an insatiable thirst... If it turns out to be a toxin that is responsible, that will raise more questions because there is no obvious source of exposure. It really is a puzzle."

Mr Fitzgerald said the deaths could be a result of the dry winter, which had caused algal and bacterial blooms in the Esperance Lakes Nature Reserves north of the town. Esperance recorded only 457mm rainfall in 2006. Its long-term average is 620mm.

Initially, health authorities feared a virus, possibly similar to deadly bird flu, was responsible. That was quickly ruled out, along with poisoning from bacteria or eating poisoned insects.

The first deaths were reported by Esperance resident Michelle Crisp, whose property is close to bush in the worst-affected area. Dozens of native birds began dying in her back yard a week before Christmas. She began ringing around neighbours and was shocked to find they were experiencing the same thing. Mrs Crisp found four dead birds, then 16, then 30 and finally up to 80.

Mike Fitzgerald said that any one of hundreds of toxins could be causing the deaths but so far all leads had not produced any answers.

Sources:
The Sunday Times - Day the birds fell dead
ABC - Esperance bird deaths mystify authorities
Border Mail - Toxin feared in deaths of birds
Perth Now - Autopsy may solve bird deaths

Aboriginal Sovereignty can be recognised!

AUSTRALIA - JANUARY 2007: Aboriginal Sovereignty can be recognised!

Native Title and Reconciliation have not adequetly addressed Indigenous rights on this continent. Native Title puts the onus on Indigenous peoples to somehow prove continuous connection with their land - an impossible task given the effects of dispossession and attempted genocide. Indigenous peoples have sacred connections and rights to this land exercised over tens of thousands of years.

Stop the genocide of Indigenous peoples; Achieve recognition of Indigenous peoples as having sovereign rights over the land; and Work towards the development of treaties so that Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples can co-exist on the land...
NAIHO Collective
© 1983

SOVEREIGNTY

Sovereignty is not a vague legal concept.

Sovereignty is a practical and achievable goal.

Sovereignty for Aboriginal people can be defined as recognition of our Aboriginal Rights. Sovereignty can be demonstrated as Aboriginal people controlling all aspects of our lives and destiny.

Sovereignty is independent action. It is Aborigines doing things as Aboriginal people, controlling those aspects of our existence which are Aboriginal. These include our culture, our economy, our social lives and our indigenous political institutions. Wrapped up in all of this are health housing education legal matters and land rights, and many others things. When Aboriginal people are able to exercise absolute control over these essential areas without penalty being imposed on us by non Aboriginal society, then our Aboriginal Sovereignty will have been recognized.

At present the federal government has taken on some responsibilities for some areas of Aboriginal survival, so has the state government and so has local governments. Aboriginal Sovereignty will be recognized and working when these non Aboriginal agencies relinquish control or influence over these areas of Aboriginal survival to our people in toto.

This is not apartheid nor separatism, we are not saying send all the blacks to the territory and let them run it and have nothing to do with the rest of Australia, we are instead promoting parallel development. Aboriginal Sovereignty can be recognized and actioned without destroying the Commonwealth, it may be hard but it is possible. Canada, Denmark, China, U.S.A. and other acceptable western democracies have recognized the Sovereignty of the indigenous people without the disintegration of that society.

Aboriginal people can exist as sovereign, identified, indigenous nations within the Commonwealth of Australia.

NAIHO Collective
© 1983

http://www.kooriweb.org/gst/sovereignty/naiho.html

_______________

The Reconciliation process has failed. The concept of reconciliation is based on the approach that Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples need to 'reconcile their differences'. Indigenous peoples have suffered attempted and actual genocide at the hands of white people.

White settlers directly and indirectly killed large numbers of Indigenous people. The Australian government continued the attempted genocide through enclosed camps, reservations and forced removals of children.

Indigenous peoples today continue to be severely disadvantaged, suffering shocking Third World conditions that Australia should be ashamed of. We must recognise the attempted genocide of Indigenous culture, society and people, and end it.

There is no escaping the issues of genocide, sovereignty and treaty. Unless they are properly addressed, Indigenous peoples will continue to suffer greatly and struggle to regain their dignity. Unless they are properly addressed, non-Indigenous people will continue to carry the scar in their souls and their society that comes from not being at peace with the land and its traditional owners.

Get Indigenous rights back on the agenda. REALISE the shameful situation facing Indigenous peoples on this continent...


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"There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one's native land." - Euripides 431 B.C.
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Warning! Some of the links below contain images of indigenous people now deceased.

Sources:
Back to Basics - Aboriginal Sovereignty
Australia Day, Invasion Day or Aboriginal Sovereignty Day?
TOWARDS ABORIGINAL SOVEREIGNTY
kooriweb.org - Black Australia's 200 year struggle for justice
Genocide to end - Sovereignty acknowledged - Treaty to be made
Indymedia

Innocent until proven guilty is more than a mantra - Fair Go For David Hicks

Innocent until proven guilty is more than a mantra - Fair Go For David Hicks

JANUARY 11, 2007 - The US military progaganda machine kicked in today, when Colonel Morris Davis, chief prosecutor for the US Office of Military Commissions, dismissed any notion of Australian terror suspect David Hicks, locked in Guantanamo Bay as a "young and naive adventurer."

Hicks, who has today spent five years in detention at Guantanamo Bay, was labelled by the US military as "fully fledged al-Qaeda operative who took orders from Osama bin Laden..." This despits any evidence to support the colonel's claims of Hicks's al-Qaeda connections.

Today, January 11, 2007, 31 year-old David Hicks, from Adelaide, South Australia has begun the sixth year of a nightmare in hell...
Hicks, a Muslim convert has been detained by the US at its naval base in Cuba since January 2002, a month after he was captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

"David Hicks attended basic training, the al-Qaeda basic training, (and) went back for repeated advance courses in terrorism,” Colonel Davis told the corporate media. "He knew and associated with a number of al-Qaeda senior leadership. He conducted surveillance on the US embassy and other embassies. He eventually left Afghanistan and it's my understanding was heading back to Australia when 9/11 happened." Colonel Davis says Hicks, when he heard about 9/11, "said it was a good thing (and) he went back to the battlefield, back to Afghanistan, and reported in to the senior leadership of al-Qaeda and basically said, 'I'm David Hicks and I'm reporting for duty'," said Colonel Davis.

But Hicks's US military-appointed defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said he was not aware of any evidence to support the colonel's claims of Hicks's al-Qaeda connections. He also scoffed at the suggestion that his client had translated training manuals for the terror group.

But the charges were dropped after a US Supreme Court ruled in June that military tribunals set up to try Hicks and other Guantanamo Bay inmates were illegal. His Australian lawyer, David McLeod, said the Australian Government must now step in and help the South Australian.

"Our expectation is that, if this Government does nothing, David Hicks will still be there in two years' time awaiting trial," Mr McLeod said on ABC radio.

"A reason for that is Supreme Court challenges to this new military commission brought by other detainees, not necessarily David Hicks... he will be sitting there biding his time, contemplating taking his life, no doubt, because of what we've heard about his mental state."

"David Hicks currently is not facing any charges -- he's not even before any regular legal system."

Mr McLeod said the Australian Government must now step in and help Hicks. Labor says John Howard could push for Hicks to be released on bail and placed under a control order in Australia, whilst the Law Council of Australia president Tim Bugg has criticised the Government's "blind defence" of the commissions.

Hicks pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attempted murder at a military commission hearing in 2004. These charges were dropped when the US Supreme Court ruled last June the military commissions were unlawful. The US government has revamped the commission process and is expected to lay fresh charges soon.

Innocent until proven guilty is more than a mantra. A government is publicly labelling a person a dangerous terrorist. They detain him for years without charge and then claim that it respects the presumption of innocence.

In the past week, the director of prosecutions of the new Australian Military Court, Brigadier Lyn McDade, said Hicks' treatment was abominable and former prime minister Malcolm Fraser said the Government had deserted Hicks. Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has repeated his call for Mr Hicks to be tried as quickly as possible. Delaying a trial for so long meant that evidence did not remain fresh, Mr Keelty said.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Australian Government had been in discussions with the US and he expected Mr Hicks to be charged "within a matter of weeks".

Perth Rally : 5 Years in Gitmo! David Hicks Deserves Justice
http://perth.indymedia.org/?action=newswire&parentview=41968


SOURCES:
Herald Sun
Courier Mail
The Australian
The Age
Lex Lasry
SMH