Joined At The Navel: The ABC BBC of it

Yesterday, in the wake of yet another Islamic atrocity (the Nice tragedy), conservative Australian columnist Andrew Bolt wrote an article in the Herald-Sun which caught the fancy of an Australian television personality named Sonia Kruger (see my previous post).

Note how the BBC has chosen to report this Aussie incident, giving emphasis to Ms Kruger's critics and deriders of her "as a mother" remark in explaining how Islamic terror worries her.   Some examples from the report:

(Who's Pickering? Oh, some comedian or other.)

Hanson-Young is a Greens senator of whom the ABC is inordinately fond, as indicated by the vast amounts of airtime its new bulletins give her to deride the nation's "turn back the boats" policy and other issues connected with asylum:

Among the critics of Ms Kruger highlighted by the BBC,  a discordant voice:

I should have thought that being a mother, and therefore having a stake in the future of this country and what kind of place it will be for her child[ren] makes a mother a very qualified person indeed.

But the opportunity to mock (and demonise) was, after all, the only reason the Corporation, awash with Islamophile leftists, reported the story in the first place, wasn't it?

I'm correct, aren't I, Jon Donnison (here spoon-feeding the not-to-be-trusted viewing public with a propaganda-laden tweet of his own)?:

In the same vein, the Facebook page of QandA, the ABC's equivalent to the BBC's Question Time  (yesterday's show here), is full of leftist partisanship, and its studio audience similarly stacked.

As always, the terrible twosome are in a three-way relationship, the Guardian being their partner in bias.  But at least the Guardian can claim entitlement to vent its propaganda: the ABC and the BBC cannot, since they are public broadcasters financed by the taxpayer.  And obligated by their charters to be objective.

In Australia, Muslims Eye Senate Seats

The cartoon below, screenshot by Reader P soon after it appeared on Sunday (heaven knows how many "Likes" it may have by now) has no direct connection to the subject of this post, but I thought I'd display it in order to show the depths of depravity to which some people can sink following the atrocities in Paris.

An obscenity posted on Facebook

The founder of a so-called Australian Muslim Party, with its sights set on winning seats in the Senate, admits that his party's launch could have been better timed.  But after some hesitation he decided to go ahead anyway.

Whether the party will actually get off the ground, so to speak, is another matter, but the founder seems confident it will.

Here's a video (on the left-leaning The Age newspaper, no friend to Israel), in which the founder explains his motive and in which he makes a brief and possibly telling reference to "Palestine".

More in The Guardian.

It was surprising to see, on the Channel Ten News this evening, the urbane Dr Jamal Rifi, Sydney-based leader of and spokesman for the Muslim community, approve this divisive initiative.  If I heard him correctly, he said something along the lines of "It's acceptable; forming political parties is what we do in Muslim countries so why not here?"

Recently The Australian newspaper quoted Dr Rifi as saying that he and the Muslim community are "elated" at Malcolm Turnbull replacing Tony Abbott as prime minister, because Abbott's tough language had offended and alienated Muslims and played into radical hands.  Dr Rifi cited, inter alia, Abbott's decision to admit 12,000 refugees from Syria, but with priority given to Christians, as well as his frequent description of Islamic State as a "death cult" and use of the term "Team Australia," terms that Turnbull has evaded.

Staying with a Muslim theme, Robert Cerantonio is an Aussie of Irish/Italian Catholic heritage who dropped his baptismal name in favour of Musa following his conversion (I'm sorry, "reversion") to the Religion of Peace©

 Earlier this year the Sydney Morning Herald carried a lengthy article about him here

It seemed to present Mr Cerantonio as a bit of a buffoon, despite the authorities taking his Islamic radicalism far more seriously.

Also taking him seriously is American Graeme Wood, who in the course of a long article published last March entitled "What ISIS Really Wants," recalls his meeting with Mr Cerantonio in November last year, having been advised that he is .

'one of the two most important “new spiritual authorities” guiding foreigners to join the Islamic State...'

In an interview with Cerantonio in a multicultural neighbourhood of Melbourne where

 'young Arabs walking around in the Salafi uniform of scraggly beard, long shirt, and trousers ending halfway down the calves' 

Wood learned that Cerantonio

'hates seeing the violence, even though supporters of the Islamic State are required to endorse it. (He speaks out, controversially among jihadists, against suicide bombing, on the grounds that God forbids suicide; he differs from the Islamic State on a few other points as well.) ...

He continues:

Last June, Cerantonio and his wife tried to emigrate—he wouldn’t say to where (“It’s illegal to go to Syria,” he said cagily)—but they were caught en route, in the Philippines, and he was deported back to Australia for overstaying his visa. Australia has criminalized attempts to join or travel to the Islamic State, and has confiscated Cerantonio’s passport... If Cerantonio were caught facilitating the movement of individuals to the Islamic State, he would be imprisoned. So far, though, he is free—a technically unaffiliated ideologue who nonetheless speaks with what other jihadists have taken to be a reliable voice on matters of the Islamic State’s doctrine.

To learn what more Cerantonio said, and the rest of Graeme Wood's article, go to this link


Incidentally, regarding Muslims and their attitude to the Paris atrocities, a thought-provoking piece by a British Muslim here

Jews, Muslims, & Aussie PM Turnbull

Ms Bishop keeps her Front Bench jobs under Turnbull

I've just got my internet connection up and running again, and as I suspected, the "maybe" Jewish status of the man sworn in today as Australia's 29th prime minister, following his successful (many will add "lamentable") coup last night against the previous incumbent, the more genuinely conservative Tony Abbott, is circulating again.

Thus we learn, from the Times of Israel, citing an interview Turnbull gave to the Australian Jewish News a couple of years ago, that Turnbull's mother may have been Jewish, and if she was, then so is he (halachically) but she was very vague about  the matter, and so therefore is he.

To quote the latter newspaper in 2013:

'....“My mother always used to say that her mother’s family was Jewish,” the member for Wentworth said....

Asked if his mother’s revelation has shaped his views he said: “Yes, maybe.”

 “I grew up in the Eastern Suburbs and as we all observe there were a lot of Jews in the Eastern Suburbs and I have always been very comfortable.

“There is no doubt that the strong traditions of family and the whole heimishe atmosphere of the Jewish community, which I’m sure some people don’t like, for me – as someone who is a good friend, but not part of it – I find very admirable.”

Reflecting on his mother, he noted, “She had a lot of Jewish friends in Sydney and a lot of Jewish friends in Philadelphia, where she was living when she died.”....'

Well, that can't do Mr Turnbull (who, by the way, is a convert from Presbyterianism to Catholicism yet at odds with Catholicism on several social issues) any harm with Jewish voters, although I've always wondered why another Liberal politician, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, an Abbott loyalist who yesterday denounced Turnbull as the Liberal Party's Kevin Rudd (a reference to the Rudd-Gillard backstabbing episode in the Labour Party), never big-noted his own undoubted Jewish ancestry.  Indeed, he seems to have kept it snugly under wraps.

Then, again, we're entitled to roll our eyes and say "So what?" when confronted with a politician who just happens to have a Jewish parent or forebear.  I mean, look at the British Labour Party's former leader, "Red Ed" Miliband.  His Jewish parentage didn't make him especially sympathetic to Israel, did it?   And David Cameron's two Jewish great-grandparents, or Jack Straw's one?  True, Malcolm Fraser had a mother with a Jewish father, and Bob Hawke had a (first) wife with a mother of Jewish extraction, and both Fraser and Hawke were friendly to the cause of Soviet Jewry, and to Israel too, though not for the long haul.

I think you get my drift.

But since the Jewish press is always interested in such things (except in Kennett's case, curiously), let's throw it a small morsel of genuine Turnbullian Judaica.  Of sorts.

Mr Turnbull's mother, the noted academic Coral Lansbury, and her cousin, the noted actress Angela Lansbury, had a distinguished grandfather in the person of George Lansbury, interwar leader of the British Labour Party.

And George Lansbury's son Edgar (whose second wife was Angela Lansbury's mother) had a Jewish first wife called Minnie, the daughter of coal merchant Isaac Glassman.    She was a rather remarkable young woman.

Here is how she's described on Wikipedia:

'Minnie Lansbury (1889-1 January 1922) was a leading suffragette and an alderman on the first Labour-led council in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, England.

Minnie was the daughter of Jewish coal merchant Isaac Glassman and the first wife (married 1914) of Edgar Lansbury, son of George Lansbury, mayor of Poplar and later leader of the Labour Party. (After Minnie's death, Edgar married actress Moyna Macgill and became the father of Angela Lansbury.)

Minnie Lansbury became a teacher, and joined the east London suffragettes in 1915. She was also chairman of the War Pensions Committee, fighting for the rights of widows, orphans and wounded from World War I. She was elected alderman on Poplar’s first Labour council in 1919, before women received Parliamentary suffrage.

In 1921, she was one of five women on Poplar Council who, along with their male colleagues, were jailed for six weeks for refusing to levy full rates in the poverty-stricken area. Due to her imprisonment, she developed pneumonia and died in 1922. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in East Ham.

There is a Minnie Lansbury Memorial Clock on Electric House in Bow Road, Tower Hamlets that was erected in the 1930s. The Memorial Clock was restored in 2008 and re-fitted on Electric House. The clock was restored through a public appeal organised by the Jewish East End Celebration Society and the Heritage of London Trust. From the appeal the Heritage of London Trust raised over £13,000, which was given to Tower Hamlets Council to complete the restoration. Angela Lansbury was among those who made a donation towards the restoration of the clock. The restored clock, now painted green and gold, was officially unveiled in the presence of relatives of Minnie Lansbury and local people on Thursday, October 16, 2008.' 

Meanwhile:

'Muslim leaders have called on Malcolm Turnbull to bring an end to the politics of blame they believe impacted their communities under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott.

Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, says he is hopeful Mr Turnbull will serve the interests of all Australians. “Certainly the last period of the Abbott government saw more brazen attitudes from groups like Reclaim Australia and attacks on Islam, the Senate inquiry into halal certification; all these things that were very, very divisive in Australian society and seemed to find their nurturing grounds in the last few months of the Abbott government,” Mr Trad said.

Mr Trad said he would write to Mr Turnbull in the coming days to congratulate him and to also seek a dialogue. “Malcolm Turnbull does come across as progressive and as pragmatic, and let’s just hope that within this pragmatism there’s a good appreciation for a diverse nation,” Mr Trad said. “Our diversity is part our tremendous wealth, it’s part of our richness, and let’s hope he can nurture that positively.” Mr Trad said he had been contacted by Muslims “expressing a sense of relief that we may have a chance now of moving forward and moving away from the politics of blame”.

“We hope Australia will go in a direction that serves the interests of all Australians, a direction that will unite us as a nation and make us more cohesive, a direction that exhibits respect for difference in attitudes and difference in cultures that allows us use our differences for the benefit of Australia, rather than making us feel that we have to be defensive about our differences.” Muslim leaders have previously shown sensitivity towards comments on their communities

Muslim leaders have called on Malcolm Turnbull to bring an end to the politics of blame they believe impacted their communities under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott.'

 Update: AIJAC re Turnbull here

David Singer: Abu Dhabi And Sydney – A Tale Of Two Cities

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

photo: news.com.au

He writes:

An Australian woman – Jodi Magi [pictured] – has been arrested, jailed and deported from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates after being found guilty of "writing bad words on social media about a person" – reportedly a cyber-crime in the United Arab Emirates.

Her crime?

Photographing a car in her apartment block that was parked across two disabled parking spaces without any disability stickers, blacking out the number plate, putting the photo on Facebook without any other identifiable detail and drawing attention to the seemingly selfish act.

Someone in the apartment block apparently complained to police and the case went to an Abu Dhabi court in June.

Ms Magi – who has lived in Abu Dhabi with her husband since 2012 – said she was forced to sign multiple documents in Arabic without any translation.

Two weeks after her conviction she was told she would be deported.

Last week Ms Magi tried to voluntarily deport herself and pay the approximately $3,600 fine – but Abu Dhabi authorities would not allow her to leave without presenting herself to the court. When she did she was jailed – spending 53 hours in custody, shackled at the ankles, strip-searched, blood tested, sleeping on a concrete floor without a mattress or pillow, without toilet paper or eating utensils – before being deported.

Meanwhile, in Sydney, an on-line petition signed by hundreds of members of the Muslim community has successfully resulted in the cancellation of an Eid Dinner organised by the Australian Federal Police marking the end of Ramadan – whilst another similar dinner organised in Melbourne will proceed.

The petition – urging invited Muslim community leaders, Imams, representatives and prominent personalities to boycott the Eid Dinners – made the following charges (among others):

1. The Australian Government has over the last 12 months executed a concerted and prolonged campaign of anti-Muslim hysteria, pulling out all stops to demonise, marginalise and victimise the Muslim community. Under the pretext of international developments and a supposed impending domestic threat, many tranches of counter-terrorism legislation have been passed that ostensibly target Muslims specifically.

2. Federal and State Government bodies such as their police forces (including the Australian Federal Police) and intelligence agencies (such as ASIO) have been a key strategic component in the Australian Government’s deliberate targeting of the Muslim community, used to execute phoney raids that have often amounted to nothing.3. An Islamophobic atmosphere is directly resulting from the actions of police and government agencies.

Regrettably the petition failed to note that the “many tranches of counter-terrorism legislation” were adopted with the support of the Opposition and after extensive consideration of amendments
proposed by the bipartisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
Making this petition an attempted political cause célèbre  against the Australian Government will elicit no sympathy from the alternative Government.

The Muslim community in Australia has the perfect right to express any concerns it has with its alleged treatment. It however needs to document and substantiate the generalised allegations made in the petition if they are to have any credibility whatsoever.

That such a petition can appear on-line and its authors and signatories not be subjected to the kind of treatment visited on Ms Magi in Abu Dhabi is something they should seriously reflect upon.

So too should those Muslim community representatives who spurned the Australian Federal Police invitation – rather than attending the function and repudiating the statements expressed in the petition as representing the views of the Muslim community.

They should all dwell on Dickens’s words in his A Tale of Two Cities:

"Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; — the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!"

David Singer: Remembering Australia’s First Jihadist Attack – 1 January 1915

Smithsonian.com

This, a tantalising glimpse, thanks to a new work of Shakespeare, at a little-known incident 100 years ago in the outback mining town of Broken Hill, is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  (The pictures are from here, where more can be seen, including a note by one of the attackers in which he expresses willingness to die for his faith, along with a fascinating written account by Mike Dash)

Writes David Singer:

The Department of Veteran's Affairs announced last March that the centenary of the Battle of Broken Hill on 1 January 2015 would not be formally commemorated by the Australian Government. That decision will now be seen in hindsight by many as a wise one indeed – following the fallout resulting from the horrific Martin Place siege perpetrated by self-styled Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis just two weeks ago that claimed his life and those of two innocent civilians.

However Nicholas Shakespeare has written a novella – Oddfellows – based on this little known event – to be published by Random House in January, ensuring this centenary will not pass unnoticed. Shakespeare has written a poignant article – “Outback Jihad” – in which he graphically describes what the locals call “The New Year’s Day Tragedy”:

'The tragedy was a desperate response, in the least likely spot, to a jihad announced on the other side of the world. On 11 November 1914 – 100 years ago this month – the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V, and caliph of all Muslims, who had earlier signed a treaty with Germany, declared a holy war against Great Britain and her allies, “the mortal enemies of Islam”. The Turkish sultan’s call overlooked the Christianity of his own allies in Germany and Austria-Hungary, and was virtually ignored by Muslims, save for some small-scale mutinies in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and in Broken Hill where two disaffected “Turks” decided to launch a suicide mission under a homemade Turkish flag. Their target: a train of 40 open ore wagons carrying more than 1200 holiday-makers…

At 10 am on 1 January 1915, the long and crowded train pulled away from the Broken Hill platform. It had been a town ritual since 1901: on New Year’s Day, the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows, a friendly society founded to embrace education and social advancement, held a picnic 25 kilometres away at a shady creek in Silverton…

Less than ten minutes after leaving the station, the train slowed down, the driver having been warned that sand had drifted across the line. The engine stoker was standing out on the footplate when he noticed a red cloth fluttering above a white cart. His first thought: someone’s exploding defective ammunition. But he dismissed it. No one would be venturing out with a powder magazine on New Year’s Day…

… They chugged past. The driver noticed what looked like an insignia on the red cloth. What this was, he couldn’t make out. Then a breeze sprang up, the cloth unfolded, and the driver saw a yellow crescent, like a banana, and a star.

At that moment, a pair of white turbans bobbed up from the trench – dark faces, the tips of rifles – and the driver heard two gunshots. One bullet hit the sand, spitting dust against the engine. The second bullet struck the brake van, embedding itself in the woodwork…”

Smithsonian.com

In the ensuing melee and mayhem that followed for the next three hours – six people (including the attackers) were killed and seven injured.

Shakespeare records:

“The two soldiers of Allah were not Turks, but British passport-holders from India’s north-west frontier, a region now divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

One was Badsha Mahomed Gül:

“Born in the mountainous Tirah region, Gül had come to Australia as a cameleer. When the camel business declined, he had worked in a silver mine until the outbreak of war, and was laid off after all contracts with the German smelters were cancelled…

Three days after the tragedy, a confession was discovered, tucked under a rock and written in a mixture of Urdu and Dari, in which, astoundingly, Gül claimed to have visited Turkey four times – and even to have enlisted in the sultan’s army…"

Gül’s accomplice was Mullah Abdullah: 

“.. a disgruntled old cameleer with a limp. Aged 60, he had lived in Broken Hill for 15 years. Different skin colour, strange clothes, not Anglo-Saxon – boys laughed when he hobbled by and chased him down the street, throwing stones. He never retaliated, but several times complained to the police, who failed to act.”

Eerily reminiscent of Man Haron Monis and his numerous brushes with the legal system:

'He (Abdullah) was not trained as a priest, but he had priests in his family. In the absence of a religious leader, he had begun to take on that role in “Ghantown”, as the North Broken Hill camel camp was known.

As well as acting as imam, he served as the butcher of his community, slaughtering animals in the manner stipulated by Islamic law. The fact that he was not a member of the butchers’ union in the most unionist town in the country brought him into conflict with those who needed little excuse to treat a Pathan from north-west India as an enemy alien. The most aggressive of his persecutors was the local sanitary inspector, a short, mournful-looking Irishman called Cornelius Brosnan.'

Smithsonian.com

Broken Hill’s current mayor – Winston Cuy – acknowledges there are sensitive issues in the incident such as religion and civilian deaths. 

"Broken Hill will be recognising it. What are the words you use and how do you commemorate it?"

Christine Adams – Curator of the Broken Hill Sulphide St Railway and Historical Museum – provides a sensible pointer:

"We think that it needs to be treated with a certain amount of tact. It was two people, what they did was a terrible terrible thing, it wasn't a nation".

Update: This incident has caused a great deal of interest online in recent days. Islam scholar Dr Mark Durie has a good article here

Sentiments On The Sydney Siege

At the time of writing, the Sydney siege is still in progress, and an Islamic flag can still be seen in the window of the Lindt Café where it is taking place, despite the fact that the lights have been turned off for the night. There is no information regarding the identity of the perpetrator (it would seem, from television reports, that he uses a human shield, seemingly female, when he passes windows, that he barked out his demands via two females hostages forced, at different times, to a Channel Nine reporter, and that he is acting alone).

[Update: culprit was Man Haron Monis, granted asylum to Australia in 2001 ... a vile antisemitic ndividual who was out on bail despite facing 40 charges of sexual assault! An accessory to the murder of his wife, he had sent poisonous letters to the families of dead Aussie servicemen - hand-delivered at the funerals! The two persons killed.   Wikipedia has wasted no time in writing him up. This is believed to be his Twitter page. See also my next post.]

But what his demands are have not been divulged by the station on instructions by police.  To date, five hostages have managed to escape.  How many remain is unclear. [Two hostages dead, along with the gunman; four injured.]

On social media, a number of leftists who also happen to be dedicated anti-Israel activists have posted conspiracy theories regarding the identity of the hostage-taker.  There's a marked reluctance to accept that he's a Muslim.  One leftist suggests that he is "a Christian fundamentalist" seeking to pin the blame on Muslims, some allege a political ploy by Tony Abbott to demonise Muslims and win popularity: that sort of thing.  I haven't seen any allegations that it is the work of Mossad, or the CIA, but given the intensity of Far Left antisemitism anti-Zionism on there, I wouldn't be at all surprised if such messages come, or have already been posted.

All that seems to be known for sure about the perpetrator is that he's a middle-aged man wearing a headband bearing Arabic writing (saying “We are your soldiers O Muhammad” according to some reports), that he is carrying a backpack, that he is armed, and that he forced two terrified female hostages to display the black Islamic flag in the window. A Muslim leader who is being interviewed as I write describes the use of the flag, with its legend that the only god is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet, as "blasphemous" in the circumstances.  He points out that it's not certain as this stage that the perpetrator is a Muslim.

Channel Nine and other television channels I've seen today appear to be bending over backwards to assert that Muslims in Australia generally are not involved in this incident and that they deplore it.  They are denouncing "Islamophobia" and talking up the "I will ride with you" hashtag.

And there's this.

On the other hand, the Sydney Daily Telegraph issued, this afternoon, this unsqueamish edition (pictured), and editor Piers Akerman wrote this no-holds-barred article.  No political correctness there, obviously.

Various Muslim institutions in New South Wales issued the following press release:

 

On Facebook, the Online Hate Prevention Institute, which is a Jewish initiative run by Dr Andre Oboler, has issued this statement:

 

 And this one:

All fine and dandy, eh?

But wouldn't it be great if the Online Hate Prevention Institute would (perhaps with the aid of the Muslims for whom it has gone into bat) exert itself in getting Facebook to remove some of the truly despicable antisemitic pages that still defile it.

Pages such as this and the page which produces outright racism:

Sharia and the Lucky Country – a Sydney Copt from Egypt Speaks Out

In 1939, Dr Isaac Nachman Steinberg, representing the Geneva-based Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonisation, arrived in Australia to lobby policy-makers and opinion leaders on the possibility of establishing a large-scale Jewish autonomous settlement of refugees from Europe in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.  He received a great deal of support from people on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.  They  appreciated the argument that the north required populating and that the Jews’ need for refuge was Australia’s opportunity. The relevant state government, that of Western Australia, was sympathetic, but in 1944 the proposal was rejected by the federal government  – as a similar less ambitious one much earlier in the century had been – not owing to antisemitism, but because Australia's tradtional policy would tolerate no autonomous enclave in the country, no alternative weave in the woof of the national fabric.

Some seventy years on, following decades of a zestly-pursued and much-vaunted policy of multiculturalism, and the migration of significant numbers of Muslims to a country which, pre-war, had been almost homogeneously “British” in population and culture (the “White Australia” policy, which had its genesis in New South Wales in the 1880s as a result of fears over the “cheap labour” of Chinese immigrants, was enshrined in law when Australia became a federated nation in 1901 and only began to be abandoned in the 1960s) demands for sharia law are being heard.

At an anti-Israel demo in Melbourne

Former Prime Minister John Howard observed a few years ago when still in office that

“there is a small section of the Islamic population in Australia that, because of its remarks about jihad, remarks which indicate an extremist view, [present] a problem.

It is not a problem that we have ever faced with other immigrant communities who become easily absorbed by Australia's mainstream.

We want people when they come to Australia to adopt Australians' ways.

We don't ask them to forget the countries of their birth, we respect all religious points of view and people are entitled to practise them but there are certainly things that are not part of the Australian mainstream.

There is within some sections of the Islamic community an attitude towards women which is out of line with mainstream Australian society.

It needs to be dealt with by the broader community, including Islamic Australia. There is really not much point in pretending it doesn't exist."

However, a prominent barrister in the Australian state of Victoria, Peter Faris QC, has now argued that no such opt-out on the lines of that of Oklahoma, where voters recently endorsed a proposal to forbid state courts from considering or employing sharia and other foreign law codes, is possible in Victoria owing to the latter’s adoption of the Charter of Human Rights (hat tip: reader Shirlee).

‘In Victoria, the Charter of Human Rights actually permits the use of international laws and judgments in applying the charter,' explains Mr Faris.

'Section 14 of that charter provides for freedom of religion. The issue then arises, does this mean that Muslims are entitled to have Shariah law applied to them in the Victorian courts?

Obviously, Islam is a religion.  Less obvious, but more important is that, unlike Christianity, Islam is a complete religion governing every aspect of the believer's life, including law.

Shariah law is actually an integral part of the Islamic religious belief and, under the charter, must be protected and applied. Section 32(2) of the charter throws more light on the issue.

That subsection states: "International law and the judgments of domestic, foreign and international courts and tribunals relevant to a human right may be considered in interpreting a statutory provision."

It is important to understand that there are "courts and tribunals" applying Shariah law to the 1.6 billion Muslims in the Muslim world.

In addition to that, the Islamic world has its own Human Rights Covenants – Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, 1990, which is intended to "serve as a general guidance for member states in the field of human rights".  In the Cairo Declaration, it is made clear that all human rights derive from the Koran.

For example: "There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Shariah" (Article 19(d)); "All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this declaration are subject to the Islamic Shariah" (Article 24); and "The Islamic Shariah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration" (Article 25).

These human rights must be fully respected. Australian Muslims deserve no less.

Decisions on Islamic human rights must be relevant in deciding whether Shariah law is applicable in Victoria.

Quite obviously, those Islamic decisions powerfully state that Shariah law must be applied. The Victorian courts must consider these decisions under the charter, thus it makes it very likely that, at some stage in the future, Shariah law will be applied.

Further, there is precedent in Victoria through courts that are for the exclusive use of a minority group, in this instance Aborigines (known in Victoria as Kooris).

As a matter of principle, there is no difference between special courts that are racially defined (Koori courts) to those which are religiously defined (Shariah courts).

In fact, the Muslims have a much stronger case because their devoutly held beliefs actually include a legal system (Shariah).

It is this sort of process that the Oklahoma citizens voted against. In Victoria it is too late.

(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/charter-opens-door-to-sharia-law-recognition/story-e6frg8zx-1225964766903)

This has prompted an Egyptian-born Copt, now resident in Sydney, to make the following heartfelt and powerful response (I'm most grateful  to Ibby for giving me permission to reproduce his statement, and to Shirlee for bringing it to my attention):

Copts rallying in Washington earlier this year

“Whilst very happy to see Shariah is been raised in the public arena, I was extremely disturbed when I read the [Faris] article. It concerns me immensely that our government is seemingly oblivious to the venomous consequences of shariah.

For our governments irrespective of political affiliations to allow any form of Shariah law to creep into our legal system under any guise is a total dereliction of duty and betrayal of our constitution. I have written a few articles on shariah and have read the reports relating to the dire consequences and threats posed by shariah.

As you may be aware there are a number of countries that extensively exercise shariah to differing degrees under the pretext of a legal system. I find it difficult to fathom the actions of Victoria as Shariah in fact totally contradicts and ignores many elements of the charter of human rights.

I am disgusted Victoria has displayed a total lack of diligence, vigilance and allows shariah to challenge the fundamental principles our wonderful country is founded on. The Anzacs must be rolling in their graves, our traditions and values can never ever be compromised for any reason. The incompetence of the Victorian government will leave a legacy that will haunt future generations for decades. With a growing Islamic population demands will increase, allowing Muslims to bypass our legal system and allow a draconian barbaric Stone Age system to infiltrate our country.

I hold the view that there is no word that truly defines Islam.

To say it is a religion is a fallacy and an insult to the word “religion”. It is not a religion. The term “religion” has a generally accepted meaning. Most people consider religion as, “a faith system usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs in so far as it relates to the individuals spiritual and moral conduct”.

On that basis Islam is not a religion. Islam is an all encompassing ideology that includes religion as part of that Ideology. Islam has many tentacles; it is a totalitarian extremist system that includes military, social, legal, religious and political controls over every aspect of an individual private and public life. Religion is but one of the tentacles of Islam. Shariah is in fact the legal tentacle of Islam. As a result of the worldwide Islamic tsunami, the world is fast reaching a point where nations are losing their national identities, heritage, culture and foundations. Nations are increasingly been [being] referred to as Islamic and non-Islamic. Radical Islam is also a very loose term; fact is the text of Islam “Koran”, demands and imposes upon every Muslim a duty for “World wide domination, Islamisation and imposition of shariah law and installation of a caliph. The end result is the call for “Jihad”.

I would ask all our politicians the following:

How is it possible that Australia tolerates the introduction of any aspect of shariah law to run parallel in any form to any degree along with our laws?

How can Australia allow a system that fundamentally undermines our democratic system that guarantees freedom, liberty, and equality with in the confines of our laws?

What will Australia do when posed with the dilemma of a Muslim person refusing to be subjected or tried under shariah law?

How is it possible that Australia will allow for its citizens to be judged differently based on been Muslim or non-Muslim?

Does this not contradict the whole concept of our legal system one law for all citizens?

Why does the Australian Attorney General allow any legal system of any description to openly challenge the fundamental principals of our constitution and legal system?

What will the Attorney general propose to about the creeping shariah into the Victorian legal system? Who is guarding our laws and system??

Hopefully the slap in the face to the Victorian ALP in the last election will awaken those apathetic politicians.

More importantly, does this precedent pave the way for other religious denominations to demand the same rights?

It may be a very good idea for the Einsteins in our parliaments to look at Egypt and learn of the consequences of shariah and Islamisation. The Copts in Egypt have dwindled to 10% of the 80million population. The experiment of Islamisation has been performed and the results are dark and sinister. Egypt was 100% Christian, after the Arab Islamic invasion 1400 years ago the Copts have become the minority and are treated as second class citizens in their own home land. The Copts struggle daily for recognition and basic human rights such as construction of a church. It terrifies me that my homeland of Australia could one day suffer the same fate. (You may have heard about the attack on the Copts by the Egyptian security force 2 weeks ago. The security force ( an "army"), of 3000 men stormed a church, fired live ammunition, tear gas, rubber bullets, stole the church pews, stole the donation boxes, killed 4 people to date, arrested up to 1200 according to some reports all over an alleged "unauthorised use of a building and not build in accordance with building approvals.)

.... I would pray that our legal eagles, take up the concerns and force the A[ttorney] G[eneral] to address the same and protect our legal system.

Finally I consider that it is imperative that every Australian should be fully conversant and aware of the realms of shariah and its repressive abusive nature which is diametrically opposed to Australian civil liberties, with out this knowledge they will never be in a position to make an informed decision about shariah.'