Australian PM condemns sheik’s sermon

Prime Minister John Howard today condemned remarks by a senior Islamic cleric likening immodestly dressed women to meat that attracted cats.

"They are appalling and reprehensible comments," Mr Howard told reporters on a drought inspection tour of western NSW.

"They are quite out of touch with contemporary values in Australia.

"The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous.

"I not only reject the comments, I condemn them unconditionally."

Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly's reported comments, made in a Ramadan sermon, compared women who wore make-up and dressed immodestly to meat that attracted cats.

He blamed women who "sway suggestively" and who wore make-up and no hijab (Islamic scarf) for sexual attacks.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?" he said.

"The uncovered meat is the problem.

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

Mr Howard said the sheik's remarks clearly related to a "particularly appalling" rape trial in Sydney.

Asked if the sheik should resign, Mr Howard replied: "It's not for me to say what position he should hold in the Islamic faith.

"But it is for me as Prime Minister to say I totally reject the notion that the way in which women dress and deport themselves can in any way be used as a semblance of justification for rape."

A Muslim leader has likened the comments to Pope Benedict XVI's recent speech about Islam that provoked violent street protests.

The former chairman of the Prime Minister's Muslim Community Reference Group, Ameer Ali, said the comments were similar to those in a speech which the Pope gave last month in which he quoted a 14th-century emperor regarding Muslims. The Pope later apologised.

"The Pope used an inappropriate quotation and people said he should be removed from the papacy and something inappropriate has happened here also," Dr Ali told smh.com.au.

"It's unfortunate that he used this colourful terminology to describe the dangers in dressing provocatively."

However, he said the cleric did not condone rape and Australian women should not be insulted.

Other Muslim leaders have called on the sheik to clarify his comments, which a newspaper report said were delivered in a Ramadan sermon to 500 worshippers in Sydney last month.

The cleric said that he meant to refer to only prostitutes as meat, and not any scantily clad woman without a hijab.

The Islamic Council of NSW dubbed the comments as "un-Islamic, un-Australian and unacceptable".

A spokesman for the council, Ali Roude, today said he was "astonished" at Sheik al Hilaly's comments, saying he "had failed both himself and the Muslim community".

"While we respect the rights of any Australian citizen to freedom of speech, there is a further responsibility upon our civic leaders, be they religious, political or bureaucratic, to offer appropriate guidance to the people under their care," Mr Roude said.

"The comments widely reported today do no such thing."

Sheik al Hilaly had seriously misrepresented the teachings of Islam in his comments, which were offensive to both sexes, Mr Roude said.

The comments also showed a deep misunderstanding of rape and personal violence, which Mr Roude described as "crimes of power".

"As a father, brother and son myself, I take offence at the portrayal of both men and women in the alleged published comments."

Mr Roude said he had known Sheik al Hilaly for many years and was deeply disappointed he had made the remarks, which were in no way shared or endorsed by the council.

Former secretary of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Shujat Mantoo said the sheik was "probably out of line", but he defended his right to stay in Australia.

"There would be many people like [the sheik] who uphold those views, and there would be among mainstream Christians, but we don't simply deport them. We educate them," Mr Mantoo said.

The sheik's comments have drawn strong criticism from some federal politicians and the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward.

"It is incitement to a crime. Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man ... their leader in court," she told the Nine Network.

"It's time we stopped just saying he should apologise. It is time the Islamic community did more than say they were horrified. I think it is time he left."

NSW Premier Morris Iemma denounced the sheik for his "outrageous" comments and called on the Muslim community to take action against him.

"He ought to be held account for his comments," Mr Iemma said. "What's in the papers this morning are offensive and outrageous and ought to be condemned and retracted. He does not have a flash record as far as these sorts of statements."

Treasurer Peter Costello branded the comments "totally unacceptable".

He called for Muslim leaders to condemn the comments, disassociate themselves from them, and pull their leader into line.

The Treasurer said comparing women to uncovered meat invited people to treat them in a degrading and dehumanising way.

He said the leaders of Catholic and the Anglican churches in Australia would never make such a comment.

"This is totally unacceptable. This is comparing women to uncovered meat," Mr Costello told the Seven Network.

"We really need political leaders to speak out against it.

"But I hope that the moderate Muslim leaders will speak out today and condemn these comments.

"Make it clear to Muslims that this is not the view of Islam and that they will really take some kind of action to disassociate themselves from the comments which Sheik al Hilaly has made.

"And take some action to try and pull him into line."

Mr Costello said that, in light of a series of Sydney gang rapes in 2000 committed by young Muslim men, the sheik's message was dangerous because it seemed to justify rape.

"If you have a significant religious leader like this preaching to a flock in a situation where we have had gang rapes, in a way that seems to make it justifiable, or at least lighten the dehumanising and degrading extent of the offence, then people that listen to that kind of comment can get the wrong idea.

"They can actually think that it is not as bad as it is."

- with AAP

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sheik-blasted-for-sex-se rmon/2006/10/26/1161749218913.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap 3