MELBOURNE'S Sheik Mohammed Omran, who has caused fresh controversy with comments that Muslim rapists are more harshly treated than non-Muslims, has said he can say what he likes because he is an Australian.In a sermon last Friday, the sheik questioned the consistency of sentences handed down to Muslim rapists compared with other sex offenders, such as "bikies" and "football stars", saying Muslims received harsher penalties. The sermon has drawn him into a controversy surrounding Sydney's Sheik Taj al-Din Al-Hilaly.
"What I said in the sermon, I say it here and I'll say it wherever I am," Sheik Omran said on ABC radio today. "We are part of the Australian society and, as an Australian, forget what I am, a cleric or not a cleric, I am an Australian, I have a view and I am free to tell the people about my view.
"Even if you don't agree with it, we agree (that) everyone (can) say what he wants to say even if (others) disagree with it."
Sheik Omran's said in his sermon, later published on his website and reported by The Australian newspaper: "I feel there is no justice here. Not 60 years and someone else three years and they did the same crime. Why?"
"They make a big fuss about these kids because one of them, his name is Mohamed. Even if you kill someone you don't go for 60 years," he said, referring to the sentences, later cut on appeal, originally handed out to gang rapists who were active in Sydney in 2000. "We don't support criminals or crimes, but at same time we want justice for everyone."
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Omran
Sheik Omran said he should be free to express his view, that the Muslim youths involved had first received excessive jail terms of up to "60 years" compared to less than 10-year terms for other sex crimes. "In that case, in particular, I couldn't see that (consistency), otherwise, I should see the one who rape his own daughter, or the priest who rape a child under his care, or the teacher who have a sexual relation(ship) with his student, they are equally dealt with.
"And the journalists, and the radios and the stations and the Prime Minister are angry with them at the same level, but I don't see that, and that's what upset me."
Sheik Omran also said he would confidently re-state his views. "I put it myself on my website, so I am not hiding my thoughts and I am not waiting for someone to spy on me," he said.
Asked whether he felt Muslim leaders were being targeted by the Government and the media, he replied: "absolutely yes". The sheik said he understood why increased government scrutiny was needed in the wake of the September 11 attacks but but many Muslim leaders felt they were being muzzled. "Some issues we accept and some issues we don't accept," Sheik Omran said.
Sheik Omran, one of the country's most outspoken and controversial fundamentalist clerics, said on Friday that attacks on Sheik Hilaly were attacks on Islam. "His name is a mufti and we should respect that name - we should respect the turban on his head," Sheik Omran said in the sermon, an audio copy of which was posted on his Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah Association website yesterday. "This is the sign of a scholar - you are not attacking Sheik Taj here, you are attacking the scholars, you are attacking Islam."
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