Use children as troops, says cleric

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21074839-2,00.html

Use children as troops, says cleric

By Luke McIlveen and staff writers

January 18, 2007 08:58am



SYDNEY'S most influential radical Muslim cleric has been caught on film calling Jews pigs and urging children to die for Allah.

Firebrand Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, delivered the hateful rants on a collection of DVDs called the Death Series being sold in Australia and overseas.

"Today many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in the their hearts, the love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah," Sheik Feiz says in the video.

"We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom."

An Australian citizen born in Sydney who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, Sheik Feiz was exposed this week in a British documentary Undercover Mosque.

Investigators found Sheik Feiz's DVDs being sold by children in the carpark of the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham and other Islamic bookshops. The entire set can be bought online for $150.

"The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he declares in the film, before denouncing "kaffirs" (non-Muslims).

"Kaffir is the worst word ever written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt."

In an excerpt from a video lecture series called Signs of the Hour, Sheik Feiz then ridicules Jews as pigs.

Sheik Feiz - who just two weeks ago said he felt like an "alien" in his own country - leads about 4000 followers through his Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney's southwest.

He also accused Australian authorities of being over-zealous in their approach to clerics like him.

"There are no sheiks preaching chaos there. No one is telling people to raise arms against the Australian community," he said.

Sheik Feiz left for Lebanon just before the arrest of 23 men in Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005.

Public response

Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian has called for the sheik to be charged over his comments.

"The public prosecutor, the federal prosecutor should really have a close look at what is being conveyed by this guy and whether it is in breach of any laws and he should be charged," Mr Kerkyasharian told Macquarie Radio.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the sheik should not abuse his position to incite hatred.

"It is of great concern when people in positions of influence, who should be demonstrating responsible leadership, abuse that power to incite racial hatred," Mr Alhadeff said.

"As a Jewish community, we work well and closely with moderate sectors of the Muslim community.

"Hate speech such as these remarks by Sheik Mohammed has no place in Australian society and must be vigorously condemned by all."
_________________
"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.

Radical Islamic cleric sparks outrage in Australia

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070118-1217-australia-clericcontroversy.html

Radical Islamic cleric sparks outrage in Australia


By Meraiah Foley
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:17 p.m. January 18, 2007

SYDNEY, Australia – A radical Australian cleric drew widespread condemnation Thursday over a series of videos in which he encourages children to become martyrs for Islam and ridicules Jews as pigs.
Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Center in western Sydney, made the remarks on a series of video lectures for sale in Australia and overseas.

“We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam,” the Australian-born cleric said in one video broadcast on Australian television.

The lectures were denounced as offensive by Australian government leaders and as not helpful by the head of the Islamic Friendship Association. The chief of the opposition Labor Party called them an incitement to terrorism.

In one video, the cleric said many parents were stopping their children from attending Islamic lessons for fear that they “might create a place in their hearts, the love, just a bit of love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah.”

“Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid,” or holy warrior, he added. “Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom.”

He also ridicules Jews as pigs, snorting and saying they will go to hell.

The sheik, who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, was not immediately available to comment. Calls went unanswered Thursday at the youth center, a volunteer-run organization that sponsors pajama parties, pingpong matches and rock climbing expeditions for young Muslims.

Many of the sheik's online lectures focus on preparing oneself for death, but do not explicitly mention jihad or martyrdom. But in a fiery lecture about the state of Islam posted on the video sharing network YouTube, he says today's Muslims are not as inclined to martyrdom as their ancestors.

“In our times, it is the fear of death – the fear of sacrificing your finger, your toe, a drop of blood – that is more honorable than anything else,” he says on the video, which features images of violence and death.

“We are the most humiliated nation on the face of this earth, there is no doubt,” he says. “Why? Because martyrdom to us is not appealing, it's not as appealing to us as it was to those ancestors, the great warriors.”

The sheik's remarks created a firestorm of condemnation Thursday.

Kevin Rudd, the opposition Labor Party leader, said the sheik should not return to Australia.

“These are appalling statements and they have no place in Australia,” Rudd told reporters. “As I see it Sheik Mohammed's statements add up to incitement to terrorism.”

A senior government minister, Kevin Andrews, agreed.

“All good-minded people, regardless of their religious beliefs or faith or none, I believe, would find these comments to be reprehensible and offensive – that is certainly the view of the Australian government,” said Andrews, the minister for workplace relations.

Added Foreign Minister Alexander Downer: “Those kinds of anti-semitic slurs just disgust people in Australia.”

“It damages the perception of the Muslim community in Australia,” he told reporters at the United Nations. “Muslims in Australia worry that these remarks reflect badly on the Muslim community.”

Keysar Trad, the president of the Islamic Friendship Association, said the remarks were not helpful for Muslims in Australia.

“This doesn't make it easier to encourage dialogue, we encourage dialogue and mutual respect,” he told Nine network television.

The Australian federal police said it would investigate the videos to determine whether the sheik had breached laws against sedition and inciting acts of violence.

It is the latest in a string of controversies sparked by some of Australia's top Muslim leaders.

Late last year, Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali, the mufti of Australia since 1989, made international headlines when he likened unveiled women to “uncovered meat,” suggesting they invite sexual assault.

Al-Hilali triggered a further outcry last week, when he told an Egyptian television station that Muslim immigrants were more Australian than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts whose ancestors were brought to Australia by Britain as convicts.
_________________
"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.