Reports that the spiritual leader of Australia's Islamic community called for holy war against the West and condoned suicide bomb attacks during a trip overseas raised alarm yesterday among lawmakers back home.
The lawmakers said they would look into the reports from media outlets and a Middle East think tank about comments that Sheik Taj El Din Al Hilaly, 62, made during his trip this month to Lebanon, and examine the context of his comments.
Hilaly told interviewers in Lebanon that he was proud of Islamic resistance movements in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and the disputed region of Kashmir, and condoned "martyrdom operations" -- which typically refers to suicide bombings.
"We support the resistance and support, with all our might, the martyrdom operations carried out by the Palestinian liberation movements, operations that are a legitimate act against the cruel occupation, according to all international norms and conventions," Hilaly was reported to have said.
Speaking in Australia's parliament yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard said that if his remarks were correctly attributed then Hilaly deserved "to be condemned in the strongest possible terms."
"He has behaved with incredible insensitivity to the feelings of many Australians," in visiting a militant leader in Lebanon, Howard said.
Opposition Labor party lawmaker Senator Michael Forshaw said yesterday the quotes were troubling.
"We don't need that in this country at all," Forshaw said.
"Any calls like that would be very, very serious and very damaging to the nature of our society. If that's happened, then I deplore it," Forshaw said.
A spokesman for the Muslim leader said his comments had been taken out of context.
"He is saying `Let's not condemn them because these people are making a major sacrifice to protect their country,'" Keysar Trad of the Lebanese Muslim Association said.
"He has condemned the killing of civilians on both sides," Trad said.
During his trip to Lebanon, Hilaly also met with the leader of the militant Hezbollah group, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, and gave a sermon Feb. 13 at the Al Quds mosque in Sidon, Lebanon, calling for jihad, or holy war, against the US and Israel, an Internet dispatch by the Middle East Media Research Institute reported.
Australia's Channel 7 television said that Hilaly also blessed the bones of suicide bombers during his trip, but Trad dismissed that report as a misrepresentation.
"They were referring to the bones of the prisoners returned from Israel in the recent exchange, and he didn't actually bless the bones, he blessed the process that freed them," Trad said.
Last month, Israel handed over 59 bodies of Lebanese militants and released 436 prisoners. Hezbollah, in turn, gave up a captive Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers captured along the border with Lebanon in 2000.
Natasha Stott Despoja, the foreign affairs spokeswoman of the Australian Democrats, a minor party, said she was looking into the claims.
"They're very serious claims and obviously everyone's very concerned to hear about them," she said.
"If those claims are true they're of grave concern. But I'd like to see more information," Despoja said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was