And Swaiti works in the tax office, which should be investigating him for being on the Saudi payroll. An update on this story. "Controversial cleric splits Canberra Muslims," by Rob Taylor for the New Zealand Herald:
CANBERRA - The senior cleric of the biggest mosque in Australia's capital, Canberra, has been ordered not to attack fellow worshippers after an outbreak of violence split the city's small Islamic community.
Sheikh Mohammed Swaiti, the Imam of the Yarralumla Mosque, was issued with a court restraining order late on Monday following a brawl at Friday prayers last week when his supporters attacked rivals seeking to replace him with another cleric.
"This Imam, he create the violence. We don't want the violence, we want him to step down," local Islamic Society President Sabre Poskovic said on Tuesday.
Swaiti has divided the Islamic community with firebrand anti-Western sermons and accusations he failed to declare US dollar cash donations from the Saudi government.
[...]
Tensions in Canberra boiled over when Islamic Society secretary Kurt Kennedy was repeatedly punched after announcing at Friday prayer that Swaiti would be replaced with a new cleric, Yahya Atay, previously Imam in the outback capital Alice Springs.
Swaiti, who refuses to step down, works full time as an employee of Australia's tax department and part-time at the city mosque, built by Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Critics of Swaiti have written to the tax office seeking an investigation into whether the Imam declared regular salary payments from the Saudi Arabian government.
The court order restrained Swaiti's and four supporters from attacking other community members or damaging the mosque, which has has its locks changed to keep him out.
New Imam Atay said the violence was unacceptable, although he refused to criticise Swaiti directly.
"I have to love him," he told local papers, before adding "Muslims need good manners".
"Tensions in Canberra boiled over when Islamic Society secretary Kurt Kennedy was repeatedly punched after announcing at Friday prayer that Swaiti would be replaced with a new cleric, Yahya Atay, previously Imam in the outback capital Alice Springs."
-- from the article above
"Islamic Society secretary Kurt Kennedy..."
"Yahya Atay, previously Imam in the outback capital of Alice Springs."
Well, I never.
And you never.
We of the Never Never.
"New Imam Atay said the violence was unacceptable, although he refused to criticise Swaiti directly."
.....failure to address the problem correctly insures the problem remains the problem....
Why are Muslims in Australia? Do they HAVE to contaminate EVERY non-Muslim place on the globe? Truly, they are like a plague, particularly the bubonic kind.
6 Arrested in Plot to Attack Fort Dix
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:32 a.m. ET
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) -- Six nationals of the former Yugoslavia were arrested on charges they plotted to attack the Fort Dix Army base and ''kill as many soldiers as possible,'' federal authorities said Tuesday.
What are the odds who these ex-yugoslavs are? Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs or just plain old Muslims?
DP111: Link is
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Fort-Dix-Plot.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
They are Muslims. It was on Fox.
Let's see if the NYT will actually use the word "Muslim" in it's further reporting of this story.
"Sheikh Mohammed Swaiti, the Imam of the Yarralumla Mosque, was issued with a court restraining order late on Monday following a brawl at Friday prayers last week when his supporters attacked rivals seeking to replace him with another cleric".
I think that eventually, probably in the US first, and then elsewhere, Muslims will elect their clergy, in a manner similar to many Protestant sects in America. This is how democracy will come to Islam and Muslim countries, not via the meals-on-wheels Bush style approach. The strong influence of "parishioners" in the choice of clergy generally produces a more practical, rational approach to religion, as well as a moral conservatism. I note that the so-called "Christian right" in America is where church members are very powerful in the choice-rejection of clergy, and they are also more morally conservative than less democratic sects (Episcopalians, e.g.). Ordinary people are instinctively conservative.
The American Protestant church member's power has had a strong influence on the more hierarchical Catholic Church (and other less democratic sects) in terms of parishioner influence. It looks to me that democracy in America (democracy meaning a powerful role of public opinion in national policy) began in the Protestant churches in America. That may eventually be true with Muslims too. Once ordinary people have the power in the Mosques (especially in democratic-pluralistic societies), hopefully they will weed out the wackjobs.
For Islam to reform two things are necessary: 1) clergy must be elected by the members and 2) deception must end. It is the deception that will undo Islam. We are not far from the time when "Muslim" will be a pop term for "deceiver". "He's a regular Muslim" will mean "he's a regular phony-deceiver". CAIR-Bund style deception is loathsome.
Darcy
Thank you. Muslims eh, Well it was an odds on wager anywhow so the odds would not have too good.
Predictably, Al-Beeb linguistically neutered the suspected perps to 'nationals of the former Yugoslavia'. So that'll be Albanian Muslims then.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6635669.stm
Update: The NYT is using the word "people" to describe the 6 Muslim males that have been arrested.
"I have to love him..." Thank God that I do not.
I wasn't surprised by the Alice Springs imam. Historical background for non-Aussies: some of Australia's earliest Muslim immigrants were camel drivers from what is now Pakistan, brought in - with their camels - to carry goods through the desert regions in the days before reliable road, rail or air transport in the 'Outback'. They were popularly called 'Afghans', and Australia's desert train from Adelaide to Alice Springs is thus called 'The Ghan'. In distant hamlets in Australia's desert interior there are small Muslim cemeteries, and in a few places they built tin shed mosques, most of which are now in ruins. Some married Aboriginal women or took them as concubines/ de facto wives - though, interestingly, most descendants of these unions identify as Indigenous, married back into their mothers' tribes over successive generations, and profess no particular religion except possibly the cultural/ spiritual beliefs of their mothers' people. Australians - indigenous and non-indigenous - need to watch out for Muslim attempts to sucker into Islam these descendants of the 'Afghans'. Quite possibly that's what that Alice Springs imam was trying to do...
We have enough of a problem with feral camels in our fragile desert rangelands. We don't need Islam conducting its daawa and taqiyya among indigenous Australians (too many of whom, like African Americans, are in the prisons and vulnerable to Muslim prison da'wa). Indigenous Aussies (like African Americans) need to be told exactly how Islam has historically treated 'black' people wherever it had/ has the ascendancy. Lonely camel-driver settling down with an indigenous woman is one thing; a Muslim invasion enslaving and raping wholesale would be quite another.
PS - WHAT THE HELL was the Tax Office doing, hiring this guy in the first place?
Adding to the above: - Saudi-paid imam working in Australian Tax Office - the words 'fox' and 'hen-house' come to mind.