Good news from Australia. An update on this story. “Council ban on Islamic conference,” by Sarah Smiles, in The Age, with thanks to Hamuzi:
A SYDNEY council has cancelled a town hall booking for a radical Islamic conference, claiming its host, Hizb ut-Tahrir, has incited hatred at similar evens in the past.
The Sunni Islamic group advocates the revival of the Muslim caliphate, an Islamic superstate that once stretched across the Arab world to Spain.
Bankstown City Council says one of the group’s speakers made hateful comments about women and challenged the authority of the Australian Government at a previous event at Bankstown Town Hall.
“They made strong, negative comments inciting hatred towards women,” Bankstown Mayor Tanya Mihailuk said. “Much stronger than Sheikh (Taj al-Din) al-Hilali’s comments,” she said of the controversial Sydney cleric who caused a storm last year when he likened scantily clad women to meat.
The organisation, whose name means “The Party of Liberation” requested a booking for a conference at the town hall last year titled: “The Illegality of the state of Israel,” which was turned down by the council.
“The (event’s) promotional material was shocking,” Cr Mihailuk said. “It showed daggers with blood put through the state of Israel.
“It would have certainly breached our conditions of hire in that it would incite racial vilification and violence.”
The spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, Wassim Doureihi, rejected the claims as “baseless”.