Justice Desmond Fagan, who has presided over a number of TERRORISM-RELATED CASES, said last week the ‘unqualified acceptance’ of the Koran by Australian Muslims ‘without explicit repudiation of verses which ordain intolerance, violence and domination … will embolden terrorists to think they are in common cause with all believers’.
‘If Australian followers of the religion, including those who profess deep knowledge, were to MAKE A CLEAR PUBLIC DISAVOWAL OF THESE VERSES, as NOT AUTHORITATIVE INSTRUCTIONS FROM ALLAH, THEN THE TERRORISTS’ MORAL CONVICTION MIGHT BE WEAKENED’.
Justice Fagan was sentencing Sameh Bayda and Alo-Bridget Namoa, a young couple, both 21, found guilty in October last year of conspiring to do an act in preparation for a terrorist act between December 8, 2015 and January 25, 2016.
Source: SMH
Now, in an society such as Australia which holds TOLERANCE, NON-VIOLENCE and EQUAL RIGHTS as CORE VALUES, you’d expect community leaders, to BACK this statement of values (and also the law, which reflects those values), to the hilt.
So what was the reaction to Justice Fagan’s advice?
In a statement last week, ANIC said it was ‘disappointed and deeply concerned about the comments which were recently made by Justice Desmond Fagan directed at Australian Muslims and Islam generally’.
ANIC said Justice Fagan ‘did not have any regard to the mainstream and orthodox religious positions’ relating to the verses relating to the verses of the Koran in question, ‘and instead implicated the community and faith at large, by association’.
‘Australian Muslim leaders, scholars and community members have repeatedly rejected extremist interpretations of the Koran’, the statement said.
So if the Australian National Imams Council (elected by whom?) will not agree to “repudiation of verses which ordain intolerance, violence and domination”, then who will?
Not the Law council (elected by whom?) either apparently.
The president of the Law Council, Arthur Moses SC, said:
“Without referring to or passing comment on any recent case, I make the observation that we must ensure that the criminal actions of a few are not used to unfairly judge, discriminate against or condemn a whole community and religion and that those who break our laws are the ones that pay the price and bear the punishment – not others wrongly implicated by association. Ultimately, we are one community”.Mr Moses welcomed the appointment on Wednesday of Sydney barrister Bilal Rauf as spokesperson for the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC). He said Mr Rauf’s “commitment to the administration of justice and to providing opportunities for engagement with the Australian Muslim Community is to be commended”.
On Thursday evening, high-profile members of the legal profession and the judiciary, including NSW Supreme Court and Federal Court judges, attended an Islamic Service to mark the opening of the 2019 Law Term at the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque in Sydney.
Comment:
- Apparently the Law Council has decided it has the right to overturn core Australian values
- If the philosophical leaders of the community, which is the source of the extremists do not repudiate verses which are antithetical to core Australian values, such as tolerance, non-violence and equality then WHO WILL?
- Is the community GENERALLY, each one of us, expected to go and study the Koran to identify the problem verses? Must we all become students of the Koran?
- Clearly, no-one would seriously expect the community GENERALLY to study the Koran, so we are expected to be ‘mushrooms’ and trust unelected leaders of a community which is the primary source of terrorism
- Why is the Law Council not engaging with Buddhists? Are there verses of the Tao Te Ching which can potentially lead to “intolerance, violence and domination”? Or any one of the hundred
- Can we expect the Law Council to recognise special spokespersons from the Bahá’í, Christian, Jewish, Hindu religions? How about Pagans and Atheists? Are they represented too? Why does Islam get special attention? Why?
- Anyone like to join the ‘Deradicalisation program in Buddhism’***?
- When did the Law Council survey community attitudes on this topic?
(*** PS: There is no such thing, no do we expect any such thing to ever exist)