Entries from July 2007 ↓

AMCRAN’s Dr Waleed Kadous spoke to ABC Radio today about the implications that the government’s handling of the Haneef case may have on relations between the Muslim community and the authorities. He also talks about the anxiety that the case is causing within the community:

It’s every Muslim’s fear that this could happen to him.

They can imagine being in the same situation Dr Haneef was in, that, you know, they left a SIM card with a relative before leaving the country and then something happens a year later. They can imagine borrowing money from someone and paying the loan back. These are not unusual things.

And to see him treated in this way, and when Muslims read the record of interview that’s been released… I mean, as a Muslim myself, I read that and thought, you know, “There but for the grace of God go I”.

Several years ago, as I was touring Istanbul, I took to performing my daily prayers at the Blue Mosque. During several visits I noticed an expensive dark blue Mercedes saloon, parked ostentatiously in the gardens of the masjid, and guarded by a machine gun armed solider. When I asked him who the car belonged to he replied, “Allahhu akbar”, raised his hands to his ears, and pointed to the imam coming down the steps. Clearly there were both threats and blandishments in ascending the minbar at Turkey’s most famous mosque.

In the old city, our hotel sat adjacent to a madrassa where young children were taught Qur’an and Tajweed by a group of very kindly old sheikhs. After Fajr, one of the boys would take turns to lead the Salat and afterwards he would recite a long chapter of the Qur’an until the sun came up.The other boys would fall asleep at the back; the Sheikhs always pretended not to notice. Unlike the Blue Mosque, the madrassa, an engine room for Islam, was sinking into genteel poverty and survived on public charity alone. It was the target of periodic police harassment, as were the scholars who tutored for free.

In the West, Turkey is seen as the secular blueprint for modernizing the Muslim world. But rather than secularizing Islam, the Turkish state has appropriated it and desecrated religious worship by replacing it with an elaborate theatre of the absurd. This has required the creation of a compliant priestly class from amongst the Muslims, atop of which sits the Mufti. Many European democracies are now considering the institution of a chief mufti alongside other measures to regulate Islam.

Continue reading →

Peter Faris, QC was among the first to criticise the handling of the Haneef case:

Criminal barrister Peter Faris, QC, also accused Australian Federal Police of being “way out of their depth” after it emerged the Gold Coast doctor’s mobile phone SIM card was not found in the burnt-out Jeep at Glasgow airport after the botched terror attack, as a Brisbane court was told a week ago.

Instead the SIM card was discovered eight hours later in Liverpool with his second cousin Sabeel Ahmed, who is facing the minor charge of withholding information.

The Age reports today that the apparently bungled investigation is now something of a joke among British investigators:

In Britain, a source close to the investigation confirmed the SIM card was found in Liverpool, and said the Australian police were considered a laughing stock by Britain’s Metropolitan Police for allowing “such a major cock-up” to happen. “Australian police have got their wires crossed. This is very embarrassing for them. The police here are laughing at the Australian police, saying, ‘What on earth have they done?’ [Haneef] is clearly more of a political case than a police case.”

Continue reading →

“Life should not be a prison because of an exam,” go the lyrics. “I have gotten lost/You have ruined my future/ I am going to tell you one thing:/ Shove that exam…’

These lyrics are from a Turkish punk song. Anarchy in the UK, it is not; but it is still enough to put those who sang it before the courts, facing one and a half years in jail for the now familiar but always ridiculous crime of “insulting Turkishness”. The reason is that the exam being criticised here is the national university entrance exam. It is, if anyone is wondering, three hours and multiple choice.

Via Reason, who also add: “So the whole case is a tiresome and wasteful use of government resources—if Turkey keeps it up, its prospects for EU membership look better than ever.”

And now for some comic relief…

Peter Faris, QC explains the “logic of the situation”:

1. It cannot be denied that (whatever the number) that there are some terrorists in Australia.
2. All or some of these terrorists are Muslims.
3. Thus there are Muslim terrorists in Australia.
4. A number of Australian Muslims support Islamic terrorism, to a greater or lesser extent.
5. All these terrorists and supporters live in the Austsralian Muslim community.
6. It is difficult if not impossible to identify in advance exactly who are terrorists and supporters.
7. Accordingly, as specific identification is impossible, all Australian Muslims must be treated with suspicion.
8. If all Muslims are treated as possible suspects, then there Civil Rights will inevitably be curtailed (in various ways).
9. These limitations are not the fault of the “racist”, mainstream Australians. It is the fault of Muslims themselves by permitting terrorists to live unidentified amongst them.

The Australian is leading today with reports of some apparent flaws and contradictions between claims made in Dr Haneef’s record of interview and in court affidavits.

AUSTRALIAN Federal Police investigating terror suspect Mohamed Haneef made claims in a court affidavit that appear to be inconsistent with an official police record of interview.

Analysis by The Australian yesterday of the police affidavit, which is before the courts, and the 142-page record of Dr Haneef’s first police interview, show there are major discrepancies on two significant issues.

There are other concerning aspects to the case that have appeared in the press recently.

Firstly, it seems, Sabeel Ahmed, the ‘terrorist’ he allegedly recklessly provided support to, has been charged with withholding information from the British authorities because he received an email from his brother advising him of the location of his will. Of course, the contents of the email have not yet been made public but, if this is really all there is to it, then it is cause for some concern and it means that Dr Haneef may be even further removed from the terrorism attacks than we might have first assumed.

Continue reading →

Further to Dr Haneef’s leaked record of interview, comes a leaked set of government documents [pdf] detailing the reasons behind the cancellation of his visa.

As for who is leaking all this material? It’s Haneef’s barrister.

“Defence counsels don’t normally release the records of interview of their clients in the media,” he said.

“The reason why this is not normally done is because defence councils don’t normally have a document that indicates so clearly the very thin case that police are claiming to have, in which to say anything that my client has done was done in anything other than an innocent matter.

“That’s why the document has been released.”

Update: The Australian has a blog post up about the leaked documents:

This leak is damaging to the official line about Dr Haneef. This is probably why Keelty, Prime Minister John Howard and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock are angrily and loudly squawking about it.

The material in the record of interview sheds illuminating light on the case against detained Dr Mohamed Haneef.

I’m keeping an open mind about whether he’s involved in a terrorist organisation, but I reckon the public has a right to every snippet of information about this case.

Update 2: The barrister who leaked the material may now be charged, but he says he has no regrets. He explained to the ABC’s Lateline why he did it (see link for video).

Update 3: The Age reports, “A Federal Court judge has described as “astounding” the Federal Government’s position that an association of any kind with criminals — “a cup of coffee, a picnic with the kids” — is enough to fail the immigration character test.”

Update 4: The President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has sent a letter to the Minister of Immigration in response to the cancellation of Dr Haneef’s visa.

The New York Times reports:

In the United States, opposition to the teaching of evolution in public schools has largely been fueled by the religious right, particularly Protestant fundamentalism.

Now another voice is entering the debate, in dramatic fashion.

And that voice, of course, is “Harun Yahya” with his regurgitation of Western Christian creationist ideas.

The Australian have published a leaked transcript [pdf] of Dr Haneef’s interview with the Australian Federal Police. Hedley Thomas, whose reporting of the incident so far has been excellent, summarises the transcript here.

Update: The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald both seem to have removed the documents they had online.  For the many people looking for Dr Haneef’s record of interview, you can download it from here [pdf].

Via Catallaxy comes this report on a plan to rescue Iraqi scholars and academics and place them temporarily in neighbouring countries:

In an urgent effort to save a critical mass of scholars unlike any initiative undertaken since World War II, the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund is finalizing plans to rescue hundreds of Iraqi professors beginning in the coming months.

…

Continue reading →