Calls for action on hate speaker
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Calls for action on hate speaker

By Phoebe Roth March 13, 2015, 12:00 am Edit
Ismail al-Wahwah. Photo: AAP Image/Paul Miller
Ismail al-Wahwah. Photo: AAP Image/Paul Miller

PRESIDENT of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBOD) Jeremy Spinak has lodged a letter with the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board (ADB) requesting that action be taken in regards to an inflammatory speech delivered in Sydney last year.

As reported in The AJN last week, Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has been condemned by communal leaders after a video emerged of a hate rally it conducted in Lakemba in July, at the height of Operation Protective Edge.

During the gathering, Hizb ut-Tahrir spiritual leader Ismail al-Wahwah accused Jews everywhere of corruption and called the Jewish people “a hidden evil”.

“The entire world suffers from the children of Israel … Who will set the world free from the children of Israel so that the world will be able to say that it has rid itself of that hidden evil?” he asked.

“This mission will be accomplished by none but you, O Muslims … The ember of jihad against the Jews will continue to burn.”

In a letter to ADB president Stepan Kerkyasharian, Spinak requested that the organisation prepare a brief for the director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute al-Wahwah and Wassim Doureihi (a spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir) under Section 20D of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.

Substantiating his request, Spinak noted that al-Wahwah gave the speech in public to a live audience.

“The speech incited hatred towards, serious contempt for, and severe ridicule of, Jews on the ground of them being Jewish,” Spinak wrote.

“It is clear that the speech threatened physical harm towards Jews. It also incited others to threaten physical harm towards Jews.”

Section 20D of the Anti-Discrimination Act is the “offence of serious racial vilification”, and stipulates that “a person shall not, by a public act, incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or group of persons on the ground of the race of the person or members of the group.”

“It is important to note that the diatribe was crude Jew-hatred reminiscent of last year’s anti-Israel rallies in Sydney that descended into blatant anti-Semitism, complete with Nazi swastikas and placards evoking racist images that had nothing to do with any Middle East conflict,” Spinak wrote.

JBOD is awaiting a response from the ADB.

PHOEBE ROTH

Hizb ut-Tahrir spiritual leader Ismail al-Wahwah.

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