http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18609
"Death Threats and Tolerance"
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 30, 2005
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2005/06/006883print.html
June 30, 2005
"Pakistan: 17 ex-Guantanamo prisoners released"
PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org
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http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s05060131.htm
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Thursday, June 30, 2005
AUSTRALIA: VICTIMS OF VICTORIA'S RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE LAW
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance (R&RT) Act has already produced many victims. The first victim has been the religious harmony that was pervasive throughout Victoria (a south eastern state of Australia) before the Act's implementation. The R&RT Act was not needed, and now that it has stirred tensions and produced a queue of litigants at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), the Victorian state Labor government believes the R&RT Act will fix the problems the Act created in the first place. (Link 1)
The R&RT Act has given rise to several complaints but the case that has caught the world's attention is that of The Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) vs Catch the Fire Ministries and pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot. Using the Victorian R&RT Act, the ICV took Catch the Fire Ministries and pastors Nalliah and Scot to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) on charges of vilification of Muslims. After a lengthy and expensive court case, they were found guilty and convicted on 17 December 2004.
The charges arose when three Western Muslim "reverts" attended an "Insights into Islam" seminar run by Catch the Fire Ministries in March 2002, where Daniel Scot, an expert on Islam, was the speaker. As Mr Scot told TIME magazine (4 July issue), the aim of the seminar was to help Christians "understand Islamic beliefs and culture and, after the September 11 attacks, why some Muslims engage in terrorism".
The three "reverts" attended the seminar on the advice of May Helou, a member of the ICV who was at the time employed by Victoria's Equal Opportunity Commission to assist in education about the R&RT Act.
This case has set a precedent that vilification (saying or writing things that incite hatred, contempt or ridicule) of a religious belief or practice may be regarded as equivalent to vilification of the people who believe or follow that religion.
The case has also demonstrated just how fragile justice can be when religious disputes are decided in secular courts. Daniel Scot was deemed to be "not credible" simply because the judge did not believe (and in some cases, understand) his teaching. Amongst other issues, the judge deemed Scot "not credible" and guilty of vilification on the grounds that he was frequently referring to Wahhabi, literal interpretations of the Koran, which are not, in the judge's personal opinion, relevant to the 21st Century. As noted by one observer, "This development represents a dangerous limitation on freedom of speech and the capacity of Christians to take up the cause of the persecuted church."
UPDATE: REMEDY – PASTORS ORDERED TO APOLOGISE
On Wednesday 22 June 2005, Judge Higgins of the VCAT handed down his "remedies" (penalties) to Catch the Fire Ministries and pastors Nalliah and Scot.
The religion editor of The AGE (Melbourne), Barney Zwartz, reports, "Judge Michael Higgins, of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, yesterday [22 June] ordered Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries, Mr Scot and Mr Nalliah to publish apologies for comments made at a Melbourne seminar in March 2002, and in a newsletter and website article.
"Judge Higgins said the pastors were otherwise of good character, but their passionate religious beliefs caused them to transgress the law. He ordered them to publish apologies on their website, in their newsletter and in four advertisements in Melbourne newspapers and to promise not to repeat the vilification anywhere in Australia. But this order could be defied as early as Monday [27 June], when Mr Scot begins a two-week seminar on Islam in Brisbane."
Daniel Scot points out that it was primarily his quotes from Koran that had been deemed to vilify Muslims, therefore it would very difficult to obey the judge's order not to repeat the vilification without a Koran that has been suitably edited. "I told the judge earlier," Scot informed The AGE, "you haven't provided me with a new Koran with the illegal verses removed, so I have to use the same Koran. He doesn't say which parts I quoted are illegal, he is asking a very vague thing."
Scot told TIME magazine's Elizabeth Keenan that he believes his real offence was "talking about the parts of the Koran that Muslims want to hide from people".
Nalliah and Scot have vowed to go to jail rather than publish newspaper apologies, the wording and size of which have been ordained by the tribunal and will cost AUD$68,690 (USD$52,740). Scot will not suspend his teaching seminars. "You don't compromise truth for fear of jail," Scot told The AGE. Likewise Nalliah told The AGE that he would not surrender "freedom of speech to a law which is sharia law by stealth".
The AGE reports, "The pastors' lawyers have already appealed against the verdict to the Supreme Court, claiming that the act is unconstitutional and that Judge Higgins made errors and showed 'irredeemable bias'. The case will be heard next month [July]."