Jewish group takes Islamic preacher to court

Australia’s leading Jewish group has launched court action against controversial Islamic preacher Wissam Haddad, claiming the cleric racially vilified Jews during speeches at a Sydney mosque.

In a statement on Monday, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry announced it had begun civil proceedings in the Federal Court against Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, and the Al Madina Dawah Centre in western Sydney.

The legal action centres on a set of speeches the preacher allegedly made at the Muslim centre in late 2023, with recordings of the material uploaded online.

The ECAJ will argue Ousayd’s speeches contravened the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits offensive behaviour based on racial hatred.

“The documents filed with the court allege that the speeches included derogatory generalisations about Jewish people, such as descriptions of them as a ‘vile people’, a ‘treacherous people’, and claims that “their hands are in everywhere – in businesses … in the media’,” the ECAJ said on Monday.

“The applicants are seeking, among other things, declarations that the respondents contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, injunctions requiring the speeches to be removed from the internet and restraining the respondents from publishing similar content in the future, an order requiring publication of a corrective notice on the social media pages of Al Madina Dawah Centre Incorporated and an order for costs.

“No order for damages or monetary compensation is sought.”

The case is expected to test whether hate speech can be successfully pursued in Australian courts.

ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim brought the action alongside deputy president Robert Goot AO SC.

“As is required by law, we attempted in good faith to resolve this matter by conciliation through the Australian Human Rights Commission, but a conciliated resolution could not be achieved,” Mr Wertheim said.

“Accordingly, we have commenced proceedings in the Federal Court to defend the honour of our community, and as a warning to deter others seeking to mobilise racism in order to promote their political views.

“Australia has long enjoyed a reputation as a multicultural success story where people of many different faiths and ethnic backgrounds have for the most part lived in harmony and mutual respect.

“We are all free to observe our faith and traditions within the bounds of Australian law and that should mean we do not bring the hatreds, prejudices and bigotry of overseas conflicts and societies into Australia.”

Mr Wertheim also took aim at a perceived failure of the federal government to maintain “social cohesion” in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack on Israel.

“Maintaining and strengthening social cohesion is the role of governments and government agencies, but lately they have failed us,” he said.

“It should not fall on our community, or any other community, to take private legal action to remedy a public wrong, and to stand up to those who sow hatred in our midst.

“However, in the circumstances we feel we have no alternative.”

Jewish Australians suffered a 738 per cent spike in anti-Semitic abuse across October and November 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, according to an interim report from the ECAJ.

Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein, at a Senate hearing in June, said he supported a “horseshoe theory” of politics, which suggests ostensibly oppositional political movements can often meet at some specific spot of centre, as though bending in the shape of a horseshoe rather than a straight left-right line.

He said radicalism, the extreme left and the nationalist far right all met at a point of shared antipathy towards Jewish people.

The Al Madina Dawah Centre has been contacted for comment.

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