Posted on 10/10/2005 6:41:37 PM PDT by Pokey78
Bracks is of Lebanese descent. His government paid for the establishment of that nasty little organisation that infiltrated the seminar as a result of which two christian lay-preachers were charged with hate speech.
http://www.catchthefire.com.au/
Let us all pray
By Andrew Bolt
14nov03
LET me tell you how two Christian pastors came to be on trial after discussing Islam in church, in a case that's so far cost them $100,000.
This will show how our shiny-eyed Equal Opportunity Commission can cause more religious strife than it solves. And helps kill free speech in doing it.
Diane Sisely, the EOC boss, was not happy last year. She hadn't found the many Muslim-hating racists last year she felt were out there, particularly after the September 11 attacks.
Sisely was ready for them – and armed. The Bracks Government, in an appalling attack on free speech, had passed its new racial and religious vilification laws, under which people could be jailed for speaking their minds.
But what did she find?
Peace and tolerance, according to the figures in her annual report, rather than the "dramatic levels" of hatred she'd warned of.
In fact, the EOC in the 12 months to June last year logged just five complaints of religious vilification in the entire state, covering all faiths and none.
Just five. Plus 72 complaints – including the trivial and try-on – of religious discrimination.
This wasn't good enough. And so Sisely, who said the low figures proved people were too scared to complain, took action.
Over the next year, her staff taught nearly 10,000 Victorians, particularly Muslims and Arabs, about our discrimination and vilification laws – and how to complain to her office. It seemed the EOC wanted more complaints.
And, early last year, Sisely hired May Helou.
I THOUGHT the EOC had to serve all Victorians equally. But in hiring Helou, Sisely risked giving the perception that the EOC sided with Muslims above all other religious groups.
After all, May Helou was the head of the Islamic Council of Victoria's support groups for women and for Muslim converts, and now sits on its executive.
The Islamic Council would have been delighted to see what work its official was now given by the EOC.
As an EOC bulletin says, Helou's job is to make sure "people from Arabic and Muslim communities are aware of their rights under anti-discrimination laws" and offer "support to people wishing to make a complaint".
But then she took a step that makes it look even more as if the EOC now doesn't just resolve complaints, but even incites them.
One evening, at the Islamic Council headquarters, Helou alerted several Muslim converts to a seminar on jihad to be run by a Melbourne Pentecostal church, Catch the Fire Ministries.
One of the converts, Jan Jackson, last month told a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing that Helou was worried the seminar would be full of Christians "without any Muslims present".
SHE said Helou asked her to go, and even rang her at home at 8.30 on the morning of the seminar to again ask: "Can you please go?"
Another convert, Malcolm Thomas, now the Islamic Council's secretary, told VCAT that Helou asked him to attend, too. A third, Yusuf Eades, said he couldn't be sure which Islamic Council leader asked him to go.
And so Catch the Fire – unknown to its leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, and its speaker, Pastor Daniel Scot – had among the 250 Christians at its seminar three Muslims, all sent by Helou and a colleague, and seemingly ready to feel vilified.
Bingo. The speaker, Scot, was a Pakistani who had faced a death sentence in Muslim Pakistan for being a Christian, and had lived in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He was not only familiar with Muslim countries, but had read the Koran many times.
He certainly knew it better than did Jackson, as she admitted to VCAT.
As he talked, he cited passages in the Koran and Hadith that he said radical clerics used to justify armed jihad, looting, the killing of converts from Islam, the rape of captive women, lying for the faith and more.
(Catch the Fire's website lists the Koranic sources Scot used, and examples of Islamic leaders and scholars who interpret these verses in the way he warned of.)
When Scot finished, one of the converts, Thomas, stood and asked: how should Christians respond?
"Pray," Scot replied. Muslims "should be loved".
But the converts were still furious, and said they felt vilified and scared. Jackson said she didn't like the way the audience had laughed at the Koran, either.
One confronted Scot during a break, and Jackson left a message for Helou at her work about what she'd seen.
Some time later, the converts met Helou at the EOC and decided to complain to the EOC about the pastors.
But how manufactured was this complaint? After all, if Helou and her colleague hadn't asked the converts to monitor the seminar, no Muslims would have been there to feel offended or frightened.
WORSE, the EOC, whose staff member incited this complaint, now had to act as the neutral "umpire" in conciliation talks between the converts and pastors.
Stranger still, Helou not only was a member of the EOC that was trying to conciliate this case, but was a leader of the Islamic Council that officially joined the converts in their complaint.
Let me stress that Helou herself was not involved in the conciliation, and three months ago left the EOC. I do not say she acted deceitfully, against EOC rules or with improper motives.
She may well have prompted the complaint in her role with the Islamic Council, not the EOC. But the conflicts of interest here are disturbing. It is tyrannical for a state body to be both prosecutor and judge, or, at least, conciliator. And an EOC official shouldn't organise complaints involving a group of which she is a member. That is unfair – and dangerous.
The EOC conciliation talks failed, and so Nalliah and Scot must now defend their right to free speech in a VCAT hearing that has dragged on for four expensive and draining weeks.
This heated legal battle has inflamed passions on both sides. The Islamic Council badly wants to win and says Muslims around the world are watching.
MEANWHILE, Christians even in the United States and England have claimed that the pastors are persecuted, and VCAT's hearings are filled with sternly praying folk.
What a tribute to the EOC and to the Government's foul laws against free speech, which were actually meant to spread religious tolerance, not inspire such conflict and oppression.
But let's look at the bright side. The converts have given Sisely three more complaints to add to her little list. In the discrimination industry, that seems to count as a success.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7864988%255E25717,00.html
When I heard that the British had banned pig toys, pictures, etc. because Muslims complained, I thought, "Whiny Muslims." That isn't politically correct - it probably isn't even kind - but it's the impression I get from hearing Muslims' endless complaining, the demands for "tolerance" that inevitably include the banning of anything Muslims find offensive.
How sad to see a proud nation self-destructing, ashamed of its symbols, its history....
America is not there, yet. I hope we'll be able to resist the enemy within...
Anyone who would not first SUBMIT to the Lord God in prayer for guidance in matters involving the life and death of citizens of this nation, and indeed of the nation itself, has no business being President or in any leadership position.
The contrary approach is manifested in the history of Bill Clinton. His "guidance" would be to "intellectually" evaluate the pros and cons of such matters - with HIMSELF, Bill Clinton, the Lord God.
And political survival and feeding of his ego his guiding stars.
Is anyone else surprised by this? This is the curse of multiculturalism - the virus infects the host.
Bookmark
"This is the curse of multiculturalism - the virus infects the host."
I'm the descendant of migrants from europe, Australia is home to people from all over the world, more than 30% of our population of 20 million arrived here post WW2 or are their descendants, we have asians, europeans, white and coloured from numerous african nations, Vietnamese, Filipino, Polenesians, Papuans, Tongans, and indigenous peoples of New Zealand, the list is endless, we have Hindu & Buddhists, Afghans who intermarried with our own native population during the period of exploration of the interior - thus we also have some 500,000 feral camels - and in the goldfields towns in Victoria for example, towns such as Ballarat and Bendigo have large China Towns and fourth or fifth generation Chinese AND EACH AND EVERY ONE IS AN AUSTRALIAN!
IT'S ONLY THE MUSLIMS WHO CALL US ALL DIRTY KUFFAR AND REFUSE TO ASSIMILATE. IT'S AGAINST ISLAM FOR A MUSLIM TO MAKE FRIENDS AMONGST THE KUFFAR.
IMO IT'S ISLAM THAT HAS GIVEN MULTI-CULTURALISM A BAD IMAGE.
Preserving the Islamic Identity in the West. (snip)
The likeness of Islam and Kuffar is like that o f fresh clear spring water and water brought up from the bottom of a suburban sewer. If even a drop of the filthy water enters the clear water, the clarity diminishes. Likewise it only takes a drop of the filth of disbelief to contaminate Islam in the West. If we have it within our means we should therefore consider moving to a Muslim lan d whereby we can at least live amongst our brethren and within an Islamic society free from the contamination of the disbelievers.
By Br. Amir Abdullah
http://www.frontpagemag.com/GoPostal/commentdetail.asp?ID=12226&commentID=260388
BTTT
When I left Australia in '94 after 5 years, I didn't notice too many muzzies. I guess all that has changed now. Meanwhile, back here in west of Ireland, there has been an explosion of muslims and africans in the last 3 years. But this week for the first time, I saw the more fundamentalist muslims around town with their full length robes and burkas. Nobody wants them, but nobody will ever do anything about it.
You know that you went too far ... when you are "told to ease up on the inflammatory language" by the staff of a Muslim school "that shuns scrutiny and contact". Good for them, I guess.
But I am simply amazed that such insane claims like poisoning bananas can be expected by a lecturer to be taken seriously. It will humble the Goebbels himself. It is really hard to come up with a bigger, bolder and stupider lie. But some people ("people"?) will believe it. Simply incredible.
good one
There is a gross sickness, a malignant pathology in bending over backward to avoid offending a group of people who have absolutely no interest in avoiding causing any offense of their own.
I just defined the Left and Muslims.
Home run!!!!!!
Now I'm getting sick!
fyi
"“Don't be surprised if one day you hear the muezzin calling for praying and saying 'Allah Akbar' from the top of the White House. September 11 is Allah's work against oppressors," stated the mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Sheikh Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali. The mufti, who had enjoyed a reputation for being a liberal, had been exposed when a series of his interviews and sermons over the past two years were translated from Arabic into English in a February report by MEMRI. His statements were supportive of jihad and martyrdom operations as well as terrorist organizations with which he met, such as Hezbollah. Al-Hilali also explained that the "Axis of Evil" really consists of President Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair."
Kudos to John Howard for his stands against the insane serial killers of Islam.
"“Don't be surprised if one day you hear the muezzin calling for praying and saying 'Allah Akbar' from the top of the White House. September 11 is Allah's work against oppressors," stated the mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Sheikh Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali. The mufti, who had enjoyed a reputation for being a liberal, had been exposed when a series of his interviews and sermons over the past two years were translated from Arabic into English in a February report by MEMRI. His statements were supportive of jihad and martyrdom operations as well as terrorist organizations with which he met, such as Hezbollah. Al-Hilali also explained that the "Axis of Evil" really consists of President Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair."
Kudos to John Howard for his stands against the insane serial killers of Islam.
Moral Absolutes Ping. Well, a Mark Steyn Humor break.
Humor, but a little on the bitter side. It is indeed thought provoking how leftists and secularists hate religious expression - except Muslim. They just looove Islam. Isn't that very odd? I find it very odd.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
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