Entries Tagged 'Interviews' ↓

Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many Muslims about the political situation and our engagement with the broader society. Although some may disagree, my experience has been that, overwhelmingly, the Muslim community just wants to practice our religion in peace. We want to be free to believe what we want, dress how we like, associate with whom we please, and say what we wish in our mosques and centers. In essence, we — like most other Australians — want to be left alone to pursue our own personal objectives in a manner we see fit.

As I have written previously, it’s my view that the political ideology that best guarantees us those freedoms is libertarianism. It is therefore of particular interest that there is a libertarian party, the Liberty and Democracy Party, running in the coming election — and they have a real chance.

So, to find out how this party views issues of concern to the Muslim community, I put a few questions to John Humphreys, the party’s vice-president and senate candidate for Queensland. We report, you decide; but I know who I’ll be voting for on election day.

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As regular readers may be aware, the Canadian Muslim scholar Dr Bilal Philips was recently refused a visa to attend an Islamic conference in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian government cited security concerns as their reason and a number of serious allegations against Dr Philips were made in the media. For example, the Herald Sun reported:

Sheik Philips, 50, a Canadian citizen who lives in Qatar, once wrote: “Western culture, led by the United States, is the enemy of Islam.”

The US Government named him as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 bombing that killed six people and injured 1000. He was deported from the US in 2004.

Unfortunately, lost in the coverage of the conference and Dr Philips’ visa application was Dr Philips’ side of the story. As such, we are pleased to present this interview with the sheikh in which he responds to some of the media and government allegations against him.
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