The Latest News in Rudd’s Union funded “Progressive” Labor Party
God Bless these truly Great Australians and their Families
The court errupted as Nagi's mother also began yelling in defence of her son, and one the victims present retorted: "You weren't there!"
Judge James Bennett found Nagi had shown no remorse, had been predatory, and "demonstrated a disrespect for the female gender and a willingness to pursue his own (sexual) gratification regardless of them and their interests."
You Rape three women (that we know of) and are sentenced to a little over 4 years for each one and your relatives think you are hard done by, Oh that’s right, I forgot the Rapist is a Muslim, and his victims are Australians.
Fred Nile's bill to ban the burqa to be debated
Daily Telegraph
June 23, 2010
CHRISTIAN Democratic Party MP Fred Nile has succeeded in introducing a bill to ban the wearing of the burqa in the NSW Upper House.
Mr Nile introduced his private member's bill, seeking to ban the wearing of the burqa and other face veils in public, shortly after 8pm on Tuesday.
Last month, a debate on the same bill was voted down by the NSW Upper House.
Greens MP John Kaye said only the four Greens MPs and Family First MP Gordon Moyes voted against introducing the bill on Tuesday.
"Last month the coalition and the government did the right thing and said no, they would not allow the Upper House to be home to this kind of racist dog whistling," Mr Kaye said.
"This time they caved in."
Mr Kaye said Mr Nile's bill has opened the door to a "dangerous and divisive attack on one of NSW's communities".
"Letting loose the ugly bigotry that lies behind this bill will only encourage hostility to the Muslim community," he said.
"While no woman should be forced to wear a burqa or any other form of clothing, this absurd bill will do nothing to enhance the rights of women."
Mr Nile has denied the bill is racist, saying his concern lay with issues of security and women's rights.
The bill has been adjourned until September 2010.
'Don Juan' HIV taxi rapist jailed: 'I swear on my kids you are going to be shocked'
He aquired AID’s from his Dentist … as one so often does! Has he given the name of his Dentist to Authorities?
SMH
JOEL GIBSON
June 23, 2010 - 1:28PM
An HIV positive Sydney taxi driver who raped three female passengers had to be dragged out of court after being sentenced to 13 years in jail.
After the sentencing, Hassan Nagi, 38, stood holding a picture of his children and said he wanted to say something to the media: "I swear on my kids you are going to be shocked. Put the date down that I am going to be released. You will get a big shock."
Nagi, a father of three from Bexley, who pleaded a chronic case of "Don Juanism" in court, will be eligible for parole in October 2018.
Hassan Nagi ... pleaded for a lesser sentence.
His total prison term is for 13 years, 10 months and four days.
The victims, aged 31, 23 and 27, were raped after hailing Nagi's cab at night. Two of them were heavily intoxicated after a night out. Their identities have been suppressed.
Nagi's lawyer said he had been diagnosed with "a man's equivalent of nymphomania".
District Court Judge James Bennett said today that the offences were in the "serious" category.
He said that Nagi had abused a position of trust: people who do the right thing and do not drive home at night put trust in taxi drivers to get them safely to their destinations.
Justice Bennett also said there was an element of premeditation in his acts, because he had driven the women to out-of-the-way places.
Justice Bennett said he was not persuaded by a psychiatrist's diagnosis that Nagi was suffering from "Don Juanism".
"Implicit in that is the proposition that he was a master-seducer of women, blessed with charm and persuasive skills without the need to resort to the basic [methods that he adopted]," he said.
Outside court, Nagi's mother claimed that her son was innocent, healthy and that reports of his HIV status were untrue. She claimed the whole story would come out eventually.
The victims attended court for the sentence.
A relative of Nagi was heard to say in the direction of the victims: "Your lies are dripping off you."
One of the victims responded, "Read about it in the papers."
Nagi took an HIV test after pleading guilty in February last year to six counts of sexual assault.
When it came back positive, his lawyers told the victims.
In a decision published this month, the Court of Criminal Appeal said there was no evidence he had infected his victims or his family.
It is understood Nagi's family believes he contracted the virus from a dentist, despite his admission of frequent sex with prostitutes since the age of 20.
Justice Bennett confirmed that Nagi had undertaken an HIV test in 2003 that had come back negative, so he could have been infected any time since.
But he also said the risk of infection by a dentist was extremely low.
Nagi's lawyer had told the court that an article published in the Herald about his client was further evidence of the hardship he would inevitably face due to his HIV status and it should help to reduce his sentence.
The judge said while Nagi’s HIV status meant that the punishment he suffered would be greater, it was hard to quantify how much it should reduce his sentence.
Nagi's battle to keep his infected status a secret lasted 15 months and went all the way to the High Court.
The case pitted the principles of open justice against public health interests.
Joel Gibson is the Herald's Legal Affairs correspondent.
For one of the best round ups of last weeks events please visit.
by sheikyermami on June 20, 2010
No shit: Zero still enjoys 95 percent approval in Kenya
“The club has a $22 entry fee and assures clients discretion as they offer services for men who prefer men.”
Daily Telegraph. “TimeOut Sydney described Ken's as "today's most popular gay sauna ... The iconic sauna has been servicing queer Sydney's sexual appetites for more than 25 years. Between the dimly lit steam room, sizzling sauna, glory hole maze, dark room and porn theatre, Kens caters for every taste ... Butt Naked nights are towel-free so patrons get to size up their prey before they commit to getting a room, while weekday Lunchtime Specials pull in a crowd who take the concept of Happy Meal to a whole new level."
Tax funds gay sex training program
By Angela Kamper
The Daily Telegraph
June 18, 2010 12:00AM
TAXPAYERS are funding workshops for men on how to use gay saunas and sex clubs.
The four-week programs organised by the Aids Council of NSW, which are displayed on their website, teach men how to "cruise" a sex club and "reject unwanted advances".
They also visit a sex club as part of one course.
Upper House MP Reverend Dr Gordon Moyes said the Government had "failed to get its priorities right".
"There may be a legitimate use for these workshops but you wouldn't need to spend four weeks on them at taxpayer expense," Rev Moyes said.
"You have people in the community who can't get elective surgery.
Labor Transport Minister caught out coming out of Kens
"I think the priorities are wrong. They are not only morally questionable but in terms of priorities they are out of whack with what the public needs.
"This is being paid for by taxpayers to allow people to have sexual gratification."
Last year the NSW Health Department gave more than $8 million in grants to ACON, which promotes itself as Australia's largest community-based gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) health and HIV/AIDS organisation.
The Department of Community Services provided a further $96,000 for their work.
State Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt endorsed ACON's programs yesterday.
She said the NSW Government was "committed to reducing rates of sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS within our community".
"The Government has a range of programs in place to address these issues and NSW has achieved stable rates of HIV at a time of increases nationally and in many comparable jurisdictions overseas," she said.
Ms Tebbutt could not say how much of the grant went towards the courses, which have been running for 15 years.
ACON director Karen Price said it was "not possible to provide a per-workshop cost but costs are low".
Chris Smith talks to Uthman Badar, Spokesman for Hizb Ut-Tahrir
Chris Smith & Andrew Bolt on Hizb Ut – Tahrir Conference Sydney 4 7 2010
Mahmoud Sanoussi was one of 14 men who gang-raped a young woman 25 times a decade ago.
Although jailed for 11 years, he was paroled last May after showing remorse and admitting his guilt.
But court-ordered drug tests revealed Sanoussi had tested positive to cannabis use four times since October, which led to his freedom being revoked in March.
Appearing via video link from Long Bay jail yesterday, Sanoussi pleaded with the parole authority to give him "one last chance to prove himself''.
He told the authority last week he was prepared to abide by a curfew or wear a surveillance bracelet.
His solicitor Louise Coorey added that her client had also sought work while in custody and had received numerous offers of employment.
Authority Judge Terence Christie ruled he had breached his parole too many times to warrant release for a second time.
The parole board will meet again later in the year to discuss Sanoussi's progress in custody and will determine eligibility for release in March 2011.
Evil Rapist Back on the Street
THE first of the notorious Skaf gang rapists is to be recommended for release from jail next month after receiving a discounted sentence.
Mahmoud Sanoussi was one of 14 men who gang-raped a teenage girl 25 times in western Sydney.
He was jailed for 11 years but is eligible for parole after receiving a discounted sentence because he pleaded guilty and showed remorse.
Sanoussi, 23, appeared via video link at a State Parole Authority hearing on Friday where submissions were made to release him back into the community. The decision was adjourned to next month.
"We've asked for further documents, further material,'' a spokesman said.
The authority will take into account his rehabilitation and his behaviour in prison.
But Sanoussi's possible release has sparked grave concerns from Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham, who has stepped in to try to keep one of the country's worst gang rapists behind bars.
Mr Woodham believes Sanoussi is a risk to society, and is preparing a formal submission to be presented to the NSW State Parole Authority.
Victims groups share his concerns, saying yesterday that Sanoussi's release is too soon.
Sanoussi, aged 15 at the time of the attack, and his brother, Mohammed, were part of the "brutal gang of rapists'' who terrorised a young woman in Sydney in August 2000.
The gang took their victim, Miss C, to a toilet block where Mohammed Skaf asked her if she liked it "Leb style'' before raping her. He left the cubicle and Sanoussi (Mahmoud) came in and raped her.
For the next six hours, Miss C was subjected to multiple rapes and death threats at three isolated locations.
Ringleader Bilal Skaf was sentenced to a record 55 years jail. His sentence was halved on appeal.
Sanoussi was jailed for a maximum 11 years with a six-and-a-half year non-parole period.
NSW Rape Crisis Centre manager Karen Willis said she was concerned about his release.
The victims of the gang rapes would also be in fear.
"It was a vicious, appalling crime,'' Ms Willis said.
"If we are going to release serious sex offenders back into the community, we need to be absolutely sure that they are completely rehabilitated and no one is going to suffer in such a way as their victims did.
"Unless they're absolutely sure, then they can't release him.''
Miss C, who moved overseas, is still recovering from her ordeal.
If granted parole, Mr Woodham has the power to apply to the Supreme Court to keep Sanoussi in jail, following changes to the NSW Serious Sex Offenders Act to allow for continued detention of an offender past their release date "for the safety and protection of the community''.
During the sentence of the Skaf gang rapists, the judge described their crimes as worse than murder.
"These cases concern one of the greatest outrages, in criminal terms, that has been perpetrated on the community in Sydney ... military organised gang rape involving 14 young men,'' Judge Michael Finnane said in 2002.
Sanoussi served part of his sentence in juvenile justice before moving to an adult prison.
The Sunday Telegraph (15-6-2008)
Ellen Connolly
Lebanese Muslim gang leader sentenced to 38 years jail for racially motivated pack-rapes of Australian girls
Anna Marshall 4 August 2006 
Bilal Skaf, the leader of a Lebanese gang which perpetrated racially motivated pack-rapes on Australian teenage girls in Sydney in 2000, was last week sentenced to a further term of imprisonment. Added to the the 28 years he is serving for other pack-rapes, his maximum term is 38 years.
His younger brother and accomplice Mohammed was sentenced to 15 years jail. With other sentences he will serve a maximum of 26 years.
To show their disdain for Australian culture and Australian females, gangs of Lebanese Muslims carried out violent, racist pack-rapes on young Australian girls around Sydney in 2000. Over 50 young girls were pack-raped during this rampage.
Bilal Skaf, the leader of one gang organised the pack rape of a sixteen-year-old girl known as Miss D near a soccer field in the Sydney suburb of Gosling on the night of August 12, 2000. Fourteen Lebanese youths-pack raped Miss D that night.
Nine of the men were brought to trial. Skaf made history when he was sentenced to 55 years jail. He appealed, and the conviction was overturned on a technicality. On April 18 this year a jury finds the brothers guilty for the second time.
Justice Michael Finnane who presided over the Skafs' trial, described the assaults, in August 2000, as "one of the greatest outrages in criminal terms that has been perpetrated on the community in Sydney ... militarily organised gang rape involving 14 young men".
"What this trial showed was that he was the leader of the pack, a liar, a bully, a coward, callous and mean," Finnane said of Bilal Skaf. "He is in truth a menace to any civilised society".
Apart from the Skaf brothers, those sentenced on October 11, 2002 following the original trial were:
* Belal Hajeid, aged 20, sentenced to 23 years
* Mahmoud Chami, 20, sentenced to 18 years
* Tayyab Sheikh, 18, sentenced to 15 years
* Mohammed Sanoussi, 18, sentenced to 21 1/4 years
* Mahmoud Sanoussi, 17, sentenced to 11 1/4 years
* 'H', 19, sentenced to 25 years
* Mohamed Ghanem, 19, sentenced to 40 years
Skaf is a weedy little bastard. Over the next 30 years he will most likely get a greater appreciation of the impact of rape.
Web snooping policy shrouded in secrecy
SMH
ASHER MOSES
June 17, 2010 - 12:56PM
The federal government is hiding controversial plans to force ISPs to store internet activity of all Australian internet users - regardless of whether they have been suspected of wrongdoing - for law-enforcement agencies to access.
Political opponents and other critics of the scheme have described the draft policy as "alarming" and accused the government of going "on a fishing expedition for as much data on the public as they can get". One ISP executive has described the plan as "a nanny state gone totally insane".
The Attorney-General's Department has been holding consultations with industry about implementing a "data retention regime", similar to that adopted by the European Union after terrorist attacks several years ago.
Reports last week suggested data that ISPs would be required to store included contents of communications such as web browsing history.
Yesterday, a spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland denied web browsing histories would be stored, saying the government was only seeking to identify "parties to a communication", such as senders and receivers of emails and VoIP calls.
However, it is difficult for the public to get a clear picture of the policy because the government has sworn all parties to secrecy.
Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association, criticised the government for not being transparent and open with the public about its intentions. Coroneos said he was forbidden by confidentiality agreements from discussing any details of draft proposals he has been provided.
"The decision at this stage to keep the process under wraps is the decision of the government. It's not the decision of the industry," he said in a phone interview.
"We still argue that there be an open and transparent process here."
Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam also criticised the lack of transparency, saying in a phone interview he had a researcher investigating the scheme to "try and work out how it fits in to the government's supposed grave concerns and fears about online privacy".
"To me there seems to be some profound contradictions going on there," Senator Ludlam said, adding that the policy "on first glance looks quite alarming".
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has recently fired barbs at Facebook and Google over privacy failures and their alleged disregard for the sanctity of users' personal information.
Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the government appeared to be trying to access whatever passes through any ISP in this country, while displaying "no regard whatsoever for our privacy or our civil liberties".
"What has emerged in recent days has been a clear picture of a government on a fishing expedition for as much data on the public as they can get," Jacobs said.
"It's not just a fishing expedition, it's casting a driftnet for the communications of all Australians regardless of whether they have ever been suspected of the slightest wrongdoing.
"Combined with the censorship policy, a pretty unhappy picture is emerging of this government's attitude towards our digital lives."
Some commentators have said the copyright lobby would inevitably try to use the scheme to hunt down and prosecute illegal file sharers, but Sabiene Heindl, head of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations, said: "We have no present intention to do that."
McClelland's spokesman defended the lack of transparency, saying the government had consulted broadly with industry about the plan but "it would not be appropriate to disclose policy discussions which are the subject of consultations with the industry".
"These consultations have involved identifying the parties to a communication, where and when that communication is made and the communication's duration," the spokesman said.
"It does not include the content of a communication such as people's conversations or contents of an internet banking session, for example."
It is understood that earlier reports that web browsing history would be included were based on earlier drafts of the policy which stipulated content such as this would be logged and stored. The government appears to have since stepped down on this aspect of the scheme, although nothing is set in stone.
ZDNet.com.au, which originally reported that web browsing history would be logged, has stood by its original report, quoting sources yesterday as saying claims that URL history would not be retained were "not accurate".
"The government has not as yet made any decision in relation to a data retention regime. However, any arrangement will strike the appropriate balance between individual privacy, commercial imperatives and community expectations that unlawful behaviour is investigated and prosecuted," McClelland's spokesman said.
Coroneos, who is able to comment more generally on similar data retention regimes adopted by EU states, said the industry in Australia already had a track record of assisting law-enforcement agencies and questions the need for a "blanket" regime covering the communications of all internet users.
"[Users] have legitimate privacy expectations and assume that their online communications and browsing activities are private unless they've been clearly informed otherwise," he said.
"Secondly, there's a question of whether the harm being being addressed is outweighed by the economic or social burden of the measures proposed. Are we cracking a nut with a sledgehammer here?"
Coroneos also raised concerns about security of the information that will be stored by ISPs and the expected high costs of implementing any scheme, which would inevitably be passed on to end users.
So far there have been no reports of Australian’s been required to REGISTER their details with Book / Newspaper / magazine / DVD/ CD/ sellers There are no reports yet of talk back radio stations been required to keep records of callers and the subject of the calls broadcast by them.
If and when these REGISTRATIONS are added to the list of “necessary protection measures” implemented by the Labor Party,Progressives Leftists and Union Officials will assure Australian’s that like their Internet Filtering program to be introduced in a few months,these measures are all for our own good,as any Progressive Leftist, Union Leader,Labor Party member will tell you,Australia’s “Working Family’s” cannot be trusted to know what is good for them to see read or hear.
Americans BEWARE Australian internet to be CENSORED by Australian Labor Party
Compulsory censorship for internet.
Daily Telegraph 29 10 08 Pg. 4
THE Federal Government will make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia and anorexia. Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea.
The Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter. Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy said the Government's $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers — one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a "clean feed", censoring adult material. Despite planning to hold "live trials" before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or proanorexia sites on the chopping block. "We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material," he said.
'Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. The Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.
Click HERE for further information on Lu Kewen’s internet censorship plans for Australia
Lu Kewen aka. Australian PM “Kevin 07” Rudd
“It’s all about getting the balance right”
Access Denied Pt.1
“The idea that the Internet is this scary place that parents don't understand, that everybody needs protection from, isn't a view that's held by most of society.
What it actually is, is a scary place that politicians don't understand, that politicians need protection from and that's why we're having this debate now.”
Access Denied Pt. 2
Just imagine the left’s reaction to this crisis if G W Bush was the President of the USA at the time. Vince Haley Nails it
Fifty seven days after an oil rig explosion triggered an uncontrolled deep water oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama addressed the nation last night about his administration's efforts to address the crisis.
After offering two short paragraphs to explain what is actually being done to stop the oil leak, President Obama devoted most of his speech to explaining why the oil leak means now is the time to dramatically and permanently raise the cost of gas, diesel, and electricity for every American.
Jay Leno gave voice to the widespread puzzlement people have with Obama's misplaced focus last night: "President Obama said today he is going to use the Gulf disaster to immediately push a new energy bill through Congress. I got an idea ... How about first using the Gulf disaster to fix the Gulf disaster?"
Good question, but we think we know why President Obama is not focused on plugging the oil leak and is instead focused on plugging new energy taxes.
President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, said at the start of the Obama presidency that "you never let a crisis go to waste," which we now know means that the Obama team never lets a crisis go without out more borrowing, more taxing, and more spending in support of their political allies. We saw this with the $862 billion stimulus law that didn't create jobs, the ObamaCare law that won't bend the health cost curve down, and now with ObamaEnergy that won't lower energy costs and won't increase energy supplies.
Is this Pelican STILL covered in Oil ? If so Why ?
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste…it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before” – Rahm Emanuel
April 12, 2009 ·
Using the present crisis as pretext, President Obama is now urging the Senate to pass cap and trade energy taxes. Even though this has nothing to do with plugging the hole, Obama and his liberal allies in Congress want the power to spend billions in new tax revenues through a massive redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to green energy company shareholders.
The Senate is reportedly going to take up a cap and trade energy tax bill shortly after it returns on July 12th. If it passes the Senate, the House will vote on and approve that new tax in a lame duck session after the November elections.
Our opportunity to stop this new energy tax is now, and the next two months will be absolutely critical. These new energy taxes will hurt you and your family with higher gas and electricity costs. They will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, prevent small business growth, and ship jobs overseas to China and India.
We cannot afford to pass a massive energy tax in this economic recession, but President Obama is more concerned with redistributing wealth than he is in growing new wealth, even if that means destroying jobs in the process. Cutting up a shrinking pie is apparently not a problem if you're the one wielding the knife and giving away the pieces. It's the rest of us that have to worry about the consequences.
Meanwhile, the oil continues to gush under the Gulf waters. Like Jay Leno, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, summed up well this President's misplaced priorities: "The climate bill isn't going to stop the oil leak...The first thing you have to do is stop the oil leak."
The President should listen to his friend Senator Feinstein and plug holes, not taxes.
Sincerely, 
Vince Haley
Vice President for Policy
American Solutions
When our Federal attorney general is not writing character references for Iranian spy Sheikh Mansour Leghaei that ASIO deems to be a threat to our National Security, his Labor Party is allowing these Islamic Terrorists / Supporters to gather like a pack of Jackals at their Sydney head quarters, 12 Bridge Street Lidcombe in the heart of the Labor Party created, Sydney’s Occupied Territories, to consort and conspire to further the objectives of their Islamic Terrorist Organization.
Good Work Australian Labor Party and your financiers the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Australia’s “Working Families” really appreciate the great work you are doing.
Islams maddest of Islamic dogs down under enunciates "........support for military coups and revolutions to overthrow non-Muslim governments worldwide"
Islamist leader in call for revolution
Natalie O'Brien
The Australian
September 26, 2007
THE mysterious sheik behind the Australian chapter of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has revealed the organisation's support for military coups and revolutions to overthrow non-Muslim governments worldwide.
Ismail Al Wahwah, who was little known until last month when he was banned from a Hizb ut-Tahrir conference in Indonesia, spoke out on an Arabic radio program that revealed him as the "active member" of the group in Australia.
In an interview conducted in Arabic on SBS radio last month, he attacked the West's lack of values and backed the use of suicide bombings in Iraq and Palestine, even if they killed Australians.
"I say any occupied people have the responsibility to defend their country," he said in the interview, which The Australian had translated into English. "The victim ... should not be asked how he is defending himself."
Sheik Wahwah is understood to be the unofficial leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia. The Australian has obtained the first pictures of the man widely known in the Muslim community as Abu Anas.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's media spokesman, Wassim Doureihi, denied the sheik was the group's leader in Australia, saying Sheik Wahwah was a senior member and that his brother, Ashraf, a civil engineer at North Sydney Council, was the official leader.
But Sheik Wahwah is sent to address senior members of the Islamic community in Sydney on behalf of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and he was Australia's representative for the Indonesian conference.
On the radio program, he was introduced as the "active member" of the party - a statement he did not correct.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a secretive organisation known as the Party of Islamic Liberation, which advocates the destruction of Western civilisation and the overthrow of governments and their replacement by Islamic rule.
The group is banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia, but remains legal in Britain and Australia, actively pushing the idea of a Muslim rule.
It has been investigated by ASIO but there is not enough evidence to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation. Five years ago, most Western observers did not consider Hizb ut-Tahrir a serious threat, but its influence has grown and it now has a presence in about 45 countries.
Sheik Wahwah has refused to speak to the mainstream media in Australia.
In his radio interview, he said the allegations that the failed London bomb plotters were linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir was another example of the clash of civilisations and the West's dropping of one of its most basic values - the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Sheik Wahwah expressed support for violent means to overthrow governments to achieve the group's aim of a caliphate.
He said if nations did not respond to the wishes of their people, the people should use all the powers they had, including the army, to usurp the rulers.
"It is up to the Ummah (community) to sort out its own matter with these rulers and remove their ruler in a public manner," he said.
"It could be such as a public revolution, public disobedience or a military coup ...
"We are in the front line with the Ummah. We don't engage in militant activities. Our case is to make the case of Islam the case of the Ummah."
Terror Australis:Wassim Doureihi Hizb ut-Tahrir wants a Caliphate
Hizb ut-Tahrir wants a Caliphate
By Wassim Doureihi
Daily Telegraph
July 12, 2007 12:00am
THE debate over Hizb ut-Tahrir has proven to be nothing more than a poorly scripted melodrama.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Islamic political party working to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate within the Muslim world.
Since its inception in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahrir has been subject to the severest of repression by tyrants in the Muslim world. Our members have been consistently persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and murdered.
Despite operating under the most horrendous conditions, Hizb ut-Tahrir continues to oppose all forms of tyranny and dictatorship exclusively through intellectual and political means and in fact considers violence a violation of Islamic law.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's courageous stance in mobilising public opinion in the Muslim world has earned it the universal support of Muslim masses and caused widespread consternation among its opponents.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is now being targeted in the West for three primary reasons: The party continues to courageously expose the crimes of Western governments to a global audience; it unrelentingly challenges the West's neo-liberal interventionist policies in the Muslim world and it works to present Islam as an ideological alternative to Western secular capitalism as a model of governance in the Muslim world.
Critics of Hizb ut-Tahrir are desperately seeking to suppress debate. Our opposition to the illegal state of Israel, for instance, is howled down as anti-Semitism, our displeasure at the West's foreign policy labelled subversion, our challenge to Western-backed dictators characterised as rebellion, our work to generate political awareness described as radicalisation and our call for the affairs of the Muslim world to be governed by Islam branded as extremism.
Governments have even lent sympathetic ears to opportunistic individuals parroting the established government narrative by seeking to draw spurious and unfounded links between Hizb ut-Tahrir and recent events in London and Glasgow.
In the last century, Western governments conducted a brutal and unashamedly interventionist policy in the Muslim world which wreaked havoc on local populations through military occupation, economic exploitation and political repression.
But despite the concerted effort to demonise and silence Hizb ut-Tahrir, we will continue a serious and open debate on the way forward for the Muslim world.
* Wassim Doureihi is the media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia
Muslim first, Australian second, so leave us alone
SMH
By Lee Glendinning and Tom Allard
July 25, 2005
"I don't choose where I was born" … Wassim Doureihi
Westerners must leave Muslim lands if they want to safeguard themselves against terrorist attacks, says the Sydney leader of the global Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, Wassim Doureihi.
Although Mr Doureihi says his group espouses non-violence, he warns Australia to "stop interfering in Islamic land, stop enforcing rules over Muslims and allow the Muslims to assume their own political destiny … If we are really serious about protecting the lives of the people in Australia, if you want to remove the possibility of these actions occurring within these countries, then remove the original injustice."
Hizb ut-Tahrir came under scrutiny yesterday after a report it was launching a recruitment drive in Sydney and was linked to one of the London bombers. But Mr Doureihi, 28, an accountant, vehemently denied a London link.
"The Islamic position is very clear - that is, Islam condemns the killing of innocent non-combatants whether it's in London or Iraq," he said at the rented room at Greenacre where his group meets on Friday nights.
However, leaflets handed out to members refer to the "war on Islam being reignited", leading to accusations of inflammatory language. "It's very ironic," Mr Doureihi said, "that certain groups can be targeted with words they use, when at the same time bombs are being dropped on entire villages and yet the world hasn't arisen to condemn that."
He does not believe Muslims can co-exist with Western society. Asked, then, why he chose to stay in Australia, he said: "I was born in this country. I don't choose where I was born … I consider myself as a Muslim first and foremost."
Hizb ut-Tahrir supports a transnational regime under Sharia law. It is banned in a number of Middle Eastern countries, but it is not a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia, the US or Britain.
The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Dr Ameer Ali, said: "Whenever we come across any groups like this, who are openly, blatantly advocating violence, we bring them to the notice of the law-enforcing authorities."
However, Keysar Trad, a founder of the Australian Islamic Friendship Association, said the group was "non-integrationist but not violent".
He does not believe Muslims can co-exist with Western society. Well he‘s got that right at least.
“This appeal was an attempt, McHugh argued, to turn the case into one about ''freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that the appellant has been unfairly branded as a racist, homophobic, terrorist-supporting, woman-hating bigot when all he was doing was expressing views consistent with his Islamic faith and his role as a prominent Australian Lebanese community spokesman … The question here is whether the deliberate peddling of grossly sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic filth is not dangerous and disgraceful and an incitement to violence and racist attitudes in Australia in 2010. The most extraordinary claim is that his extreme views are [a] 'Muslim view'. This ought not to be accepted.''
Explosive argument behind Trad's defamation reasoning
SMH
PAUL SHEEHAN
June 14, 2010
The man carrying a legal bomb into courtroom 11A in the NSW Supreme Court building on Friday morning did not look menacing and is not menacing under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. This was cultural war. The legal bomb was brought to court by the once leonine figure of Clive Evatt, a veteran defamation lawyer who now walks with the aid of a cane, on which his severely bent frame leans heavily.
As Evatt took his place at the plaintiff's bench, the man on whose instructions he was acting, Keysar Trad - a thickset, bearded man wearing a grey suit, blue shirt and tie - sat alone in the back row of the public gallery.
Trad is no stranger to litigation. Over many years he has expended untold hours making formal complaints to the NSW Supreme Court, the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, the Anti-Discrimination Board, the Human Rights Commission, the Press Council, other review bodies and, above all, the media, where he has operated as a quote-machine representing the Muslim community in Australia.
He was in court on Friday because of a disaster of his own making. After delivering a hostile tirade against Sydney's top-rated radio station, 2GB, during a ''peace'' rally in 2005, Trad was himself criticised the next day by a 2GB presenter, Jason Morrison, though not in the same language Trad had used at the rally where he claimed to speak on behalf of Muslims in Australia.
Trad sued for defamation. He was the star witness for his own case. The senior judge, Justice Peter McClellan, the chief judge of common law in the NSW Supreme Court, found against Trad, and found him to be a witness of little credibility, a man of extreme views and, in summary, ''a disgraceful individual''.
Such was Trad's performance under oath that on Friday the counsel for the defence, Richard McHugh, SC, delivered this devastating portrayal of his credibility under oath: ''[Trad] attempted to evade responsibility for his statements by claiming he was misquoted, by claiming he was taken out of context, by claiming he had changed his mind, or by claiming he did not even know what he had said or written at the instant he said or wrote it. He was entirely disbelieved.
''[His] evidence that he did not know who was the author of Mein Kampf - and his feigned attempts at a thought process to recollect the author's name - were a low point in this trial. The transcript in this case can supply only a colourless picture of the evidence at trial.''
Even before this appeal, Trad was facing legal costs exceeding $250,000. He decided to up his risk. On Friday morning, I counted 16 lawyers in the court. At this level, justice is neither fast nor cheap.
The Trads
His appeal was based on several major grounds but the most prominent and contentious, made repeatedly in oral and written submissions, was that Justice McClellan had erred fundamentally by taking Trad's provocative comments over the years out of the context of the Muslim community. To quote Evatt: ''His honour did not take into account that Australia is a multicultural society and the viewpoints of ethnic groups are recognised by the Australian community even though not all members of the community agree with them.''
And this: ''His honour did not refer to or even consider the likelihood the average citizen would recognise that the views expressed by [Trad] were similar to beliefs shared by Muslims throughout the world including Muslims in Australia.'' And this: ''His honour appears to have given no weight to the fact that the speech was made to Muslims in a mosque and not in an address to the general community.''
And this: ''His honour overlooked the fact Sheikh Hilaly's speech [defended by Trad] was not made to members of the Australian community but to Muslims and others who attended the Sidon Mosque in Lebanon.''
This is an explosive argument. It means this aspect of the appeal may rest on the argument that the Muslim community operates under different standards than the rest of society and cannot be judged using the same standards. Further, these standards, even if judged to be extreme by the rest of society, should be respected.
It is fair to say the bench became restive on Friday. There were plenty of tart exchanges from the three judges, justices Murray Tobias, Ruth McColl and John Basten. But this was nothing compared with the fire and brimstone from the defence.
This appeal was an attempt, McHugh argued, to turn the case into one about ''freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that the appellant has been unfairly branded as a racist, homophobic, terrorist-supporting, woman-hating bigot when all he was doing was expressing views consistent with his Islamic faith and his role as a prominent Australian Lebanese community spokesman … The question here is whether the deliberate peddling of grossly sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic filth is not dangerous and disgraceful and an incitement to violence and racist attitudes in Australia in 2010. The most extraordinary claim is that his extreme views are [a] 'Muslim view'. This ought not to be accepted.''
If Trad does prevail in his appeal, this case, Trad v Harbour Radio, will be corrosive to the idea of mainstream Muslim moderation, and to the ideal that most Muslims are naturally part of a cohesive element in the weave of Australia's culture rather than functioning under de facto Islamic law while giving mere lip service to the Australian legal system and the values it upholds.
Islam's man of a million comments
SMH
October 2 2002
Recent events have focused attention on Muslims in a way never before considered. Deborah Cameron profiles one of the Sydney community's leading lights.
Pink pickled turnip and little sprigs of mint tumble out of the pita bread as Keysar Trad hits the kerb in his big old Pajero.
He is taking a short cut between his favourite falafel shop and a cafe where the walls are lined with jars of honey and bottles of rosewater.
The wheel thumps hard. The four-year-old in front lets out a squawk. His wife, Hanifeh, sitting in the back with the two-year-old, tut-tuts at him driving, eating, talking and winding down the windows, more or less at the same time.
Pulling up at the Farouk and Chehade El Bahsa Sweets shop in South Bankstown, everyone is ready for the ice-cream which comes in about 10 colours. It is practically an insult to order one scoop of pistachio. "You must taste every colour," insists Trad, handing over a deep silver bowl and spoon.
Outside it is warm. Hanifeh, covered from head to toe in a long dark-coloured dress and headscarf, looks cooler than she probably feels. For a woman of 38 with nine children, no money to spare and a husband devoted to voluntary community work, her face is free of worry. She is even at ease with what she calls "Keysar's pet topic": a second wife.
Trad is director of the Lebanese Muslim Association and, because the times have demanded it, an increasingly well-known community spokesman. He is a refugee advocate and translator, an essayist, a spokesman on political issues, a critic of racial labelling by police, a close adviser to the Mufti Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilaly and a calm interpreter of Islam to the nervous broader community.
He gets frustrated with the association and has quit at least twice this year but returned out of a sense of duty and an instinct that it would revert to a "no comment" approach to the media which would be wrong at a time like this. Within his community he is criticised for publicly discussing refugees, Lebanese gang rapes and Islamic attitudes.
"They say when a Muslim speaks it is an admission that Islam has a problem," Trad says. "They say you don't see them filming churches when a Christian commits a rape or a murder, so why are you letting them come to interview you at the mosque? They don't realise that the media comes anyway. They tell me - just say "no comment" - but I have a million comments. They cannot censor me. I answer the questions sensibly and we have got nothing to hide."
TRAD and Hanifeh have been through a lot. They met in Lebanon when they were both about 22. They married after three weeks and she came to live with her new husband and mother-in-law in Yagoona. Trad worked at the Australian Tax Office while Hanifeh took English classes. "I find it hard to believe these mothers who cannot understand their children's language or who are dependent on their children for translation," she says.
Hanifeh, a law student in Lebanon, worked as an editor and journalist on Arabic publications in Sydney and studied computer science after emigrating. But when her fourth child was born, family took over.
It has not been easy and they remember 1998 as their worst year when Trad fell in love - "became obsessed", his wife says - with another woman. In desperation, Hanifeh proposed marriage on her husband's behalf to the other woman. "We were having a terrible time. He fell in love and I wasn't thinking about myself," she says. But his obsession passed. "He became more compassionate after it," Hanifeh says. "God meant for him to go through this experience and it made him a better person and more emotionally aware. It knocked him off his perch."
Hanifeh was not heartbroken. A second wife would have meant divorce (though he was against it) or living under the same roof as her husband's mistress. As long as the arrangement was fair and had the consent of all involved, it would be acceptable. Hanifeh loves her husband and the children, but says she is not strong enough, physically or emotionally, for more babies.
Aware that Australian law prohibits polygamy, they know a second wife could never be official. But their religion allows a man four wives and though a lot of what they say to each other about polygamy amounts to teasing, there is also a serious thread. It was Hanifeh who first raised it, approvingly, before they married.
Trad and Hanifeh say Islam is central to their values and the most important thing they can impart to their children. A strong set of beliefs is needed to resist society's temptations. Both were raised in large devout families - Trad the eldest son of his father's third wife, and Hanifeh a middle daughter in a family of 12 - and they have accepted the same model for themselves.
Trad arrived in Australia at 13 as part of a family reunion complicated by polygamy. His half-brother who had settled in Sydney got permission to bring his mother and siblings from Lebanon. Because his mother was married, she was able to bring her husband. At the time her husband was married to two other women. One of them (Trad's mother) came along, too, with her children. The older wife divorced her husband in Australia and the patriarch lived with Trad's mother.
To Trad's regret his father, in his 60s then, did not adjust. He could not find full-time work in Sydney. "Isn't it a shame for a grown man not to have a job," he would say, even as he neared death at 80. His father eventually returned to Lebanon which left Trad - as a teenager - responsible for his mother and the younger children.
After ice-cream, the family returns to the house Trad calls "the untidiest in street". In the lounge, three couches are pushed back against walls in need of painting. Bits of jute poke out of the plaster rubbed raw by chairs. A coffee table is laid with almonds, preserved green plums, sweet biscuits, glasses of cold delicious Lebanese cordial tasting like liquified quinces, and the baby capsule bearing the youngest child cooing and kicking his legs.
Trad is opening mail and wonders whether a letter from the council might be to direct him to mow the grass. Instead, it concerns the baby's immunisations. "Give this to your mum," he tells the four-year-old who has walked into the room prattling about The Simpsons and clutching a pencil case, two colouring books and an oven mitt.
In the same post is a statement from the Public Service superannuation fund. He reads out the balance which is tiny. "Money means nothing to me," he says. The family qualifies for low-income support. Trad is prepared for more years of financial hardship.
For the children, it means few toys and a scant wardrobe. "I can see when my son needs new pants but he doesn't talk about it," Hanifeh says. "The kids don't ask for too much." Hanifeh reads the employment section on his behalf, but one of the children put it well: "Dad doesn't need a job; he needs a miracle to make him rich."
The mayhem that comes with nine children in a modest house does not faze them. Even on a school day with six of the kids at local public high and primary schools, the three youngest are a distraction. Conversation occurs against a background of slamming doors, kids yelling and toys being dropped, with neither parent worried. They wipe runny noses and finish complicated anecdotes.
"Imagine if our children grow up with good values like we are trying to give them,"says Trad, "Imagine what great people they'll be for society. I have to make sure that they are positive, contributing members. I will be happy if their sense of social justice is very strong."
Trad's faith has had its phases. It was least strong in Lebanon when he lived among non-practising Muslims who rarely prayed at mosques and did not have access to religious texts. Arriving in Australia he was advised by his half-brother to keep quiet about religion, to be careful around women and to change his name. His half-brother went by the surname Wilson.
For the first few years Trad did not talk about his religion. "People could see that my mother covered her hair; they knew that I was Muslim but I couldn't talk about it because I didn't know where to begin," Trad says.
He was gradually drawn in, especially after a 1987 pilgrimage to Mecca with his mother that he regards as his spiritual turning point. After that he prayed five times a day on schedule, even at the office.
"I was adamant that if someone could take a five-minute break for a ciggie, I could sit at my workstation and pray for five minutes," Trad said. "I was on good terms with my boss and she said it was OK. Initially people made jokes about me headbutting my head against the carpet or by flicking rubber bands while I was praying. But they were my close friends so it didn't matter. It was nothing."
Trad resigned from the ATO at the end of 1998, the year of his infatuation. It was a decision with some familiar elements for anyone who has had a mid-life crisis or considered a sea change. A decade after his Mecca visit he wanted to do religious work. He travelled with his family to Lebanon for three months and returned home to write.
Known at the Lakemba Mosque as a translator, the Mufti asked him to take a more prominent role. Trad is a natural communicator in a community that is not blessed with them and, with his Public Service background, knows the limits in political debate. (When an Iraqi acquaintance once made a colourful reference to Jews, Trad ticked him off.) Instead of being suspicious and defensive with talkback callers, politicians and journalists, he is prepared to explain.
The Public Service also made him confront some of his practices - he cropped his beard and, after a debate with himself, started shaking hands with women. "I kept saying, 'Please don't be offended' but a couple of them were honest and said that they were offended. And I thought - do I really have to be so strict?"
