By Trudy Harris and Cameron Stewart, The Australian News
Australia has chimed in with Britain and France in seeking tougher penalities, including deportation or legal penalties, for promoting jihad activities in the country.
Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali compared the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in Australia to AIDS, and said he and other moderate clerics across the country must take firm steps to win the hearts and minds of impressionable young Muslims.
"They are a disease like AIDS and you can't cure them with Panadol," Sheik Hilali said of radical clerics.
The Sheik went even further, suggesting that books that glorified jihadist assaults and taught Muslim fundamentalism be banned. This suggestion was actually welcomed by the Muslim community body, The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, adding only that the ban on such hate books should not be limited to Muslim literature alone.
These unusually strong words were met with protest by Australia's most senior fundamentalist Islamic cleric, Sheik Mohammed Omran.
"Australia is a free country and should allow all books to be sold here," Sheik Omran said. He claimed there were no Islamic clerics in Australia guilty of inciting hatred.
"We do not have clerics who incite hatred here so there is no point raising the issue of deporting clerics who incite hatred because such clerics do not exist in Australia."
*NO* clerics who incite hatred? Since that's a statistic that cannot be known for sure, it is obvious Omran's own attitudes towards teaching of jihad can be called into question.
But it is encouraging to note there are Aussie Muslim leaders concerned with the hatred being taught to their young.
The war on words on the US front has one precedent in the recent conviction of a Muslim professor, Ali Al-Timimi in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA, receiving a life sentence. It is notable that while incitement charges carried lesser penalties, the charge of inducing others to use firearms in violation of federal law enabled the sentence of life imprisonment.
Timimi, 41, who was born and raised in the Washington area and has lectured on Islam around the world, was convicted of inspiring a group of his Northern Virginia followers to attend terrorist training camps abroad and prepare to battle American troops. He was found guilty of all 10 charges against him, including soliciting others to levy war against the United States and contributing services to Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers.
The heart of the government's case against Timimi was a meeting he attended in Fairfax on Sept. 16, 2001 -- five days after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Timimi told his followers that "the time had come for them to go abroad and join the mujahideen engaged in violent jihad in Afghanistan," according to court papers
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Timimi was accused of approving a plan for group members to prepare for jihad by obtaining military training from Lashkar-i-Taiba, an organization trying to drive India from the disputed region of Kashmir. The U.S. government has labeled Lashkar a terrorist organization. Several of the men then went to a Lashkar camp, court records show.
Eleven Muslim followers of Timimi's jihadist curriculum were also on trial and, nine of which were convicted in 2003-04 for paramilitary training "to prepare for the holy war abroad". Their sentences ranged from 3 years to life.
While the jurors had no problems believing Timimi's actions were worthy of deprivation of freedom in our country, his defense attorney had this to say:
"All this man has done is exercise the rights all American citizens have," MacMahon said in court. "He has uttered words, folks, mere words."
It was "mere words" from OBL to his flock that caused the life of thousands on 9:11. "Mere words" from Charles Manson for the brutal murders carried out by his followers.
"Mere words", indeed.
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