Jews ‘favoured while other minorities unprotected’
A WESTERN Sydney imam believes the Abbott government’s proposed repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act will create a situation that favours Jews and discriminates against indigenous Australians and other minority groups.
Afroz Ali, the president of the al-Ghazzali Centre for Islamic Sciences and Human Development and founding member of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, warned on his Facebook page yesterday that Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis were trying to “have their racist ways to protect prejudiced sophists like Andrew Bolt and such ilk of hate-speech spreaders”.
He cautioned that if 18C was repealed, it would become “illegal to make any hate speech against Jews, but fully legal to make hate speech against the indigenous people of Australia, for example, and get away with it as an excuse of ‘freedom of speech’ “.
Imam Afroz advised: “Do not forget such bigoted racist policies these individuals are sinking Australia back into, and make sure you vote them out of parliament at the very next election, if not sooner.”
Imam Afroz told The Australian yesterday that he believed international laws and declarations against anti-Semitism would have the effect of “disproportionately protecting the Jewish people of Australia” under the appeal of 18C, while other groups would not have the same protection.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry executive director Peter Wertheim said the repeal of 18C would broaden the scope for hate speech against all communities.
“It would also facilitate the importation into Australia of the racism and bigotry that fuels many overseas conflicts,” he said.
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