Preaching from parts of the Qur’an calling on Muslims to defend their land could fall foul of Australia’s new counter-terrorism laws, senior Islamic clerics fear.
The Australian National Imams Council said the proposed broadening of the offence of advocating terrorism to include those who “promote” and “encourage” violence would have “serious implications on free speech and will have a chilling effect on legitimate religious and political debate”.
In a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security on Wednesday, the organisation, which represents 250 imams around Australia, said a member could find himself charged with advocating terrorism “if he for example advocated the duty of a Muslim to defend his land”.
[A TOP RATED COMMENT] Of course this is the nub of the issue. ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, Taliban, Al-Qaida, Bali bombers, abu Sayif etc etc take their inspiration from the pages of al Koran. Now even the clerics recognize publicly the martial and deadly nature of the moslem scriptures.
Before anyone jumps up and declares "the Christian/Jewish Bible has similar, if not the same", you must recognize that according to Christian belief, the words of the Bible have "been written by men inspired by God" whereas the Moslem dogma is that the words of the Koran are directly from Allah via Michael to Mohammed. Therefore as such it is unchanging and immutable for all time.
It has always been thus. Bombing and wars will not change a letter of it nor the desire to follow it. Reformation is not possible as that would involve resisting and disputing the word of Allah. The Koran cannot be compared to the Bible and to do so is naive to the extreme. [The Guardian] Read more
