PERSECUTION
WATCH
Australia: Victims of Victoria's
Religious Tolerance Law
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEARLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service
CBN.com
-- AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance
(R&RT) Act has already produced many victims. The first victim
has been the religious harmony that was pervasive throughout Victoria
(a southeastern state of Australia) before the Act's implementation.
The R&RT Act was not needed, and now that it has stirred tensions
and produced a queue of litigants at the Victorian Civil and Administrative
Tribunal (VCAT), the Victorian state Labor government believes
the R&RT Act will fix the problems the Act created in the
first place (see Link 1).
The R&RT Act has given rise to several complaints, but the
case that has caught the world's attention is that of the Islamic
Council of Victoria (ICV) v. Catch the Fire Ministries and
pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot. Using the Victorian R&RT
Act, the ICV took Catch the Fire Ministries and pastors Nalliah
and Scot to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT)
on charges of vilification of Muslims. After a lengthy and expensive
court case, they were found guilty and convicted on December 17,
2004.
The charges arose when three Western Muslim "reverts"
attended an "Insights into Islam" seminar run by Catch
the Fire Ministries in March 2002, where Daniel Scot, an expert
on Islam, was the speaker. As Mr. Scot told TIME magazine
(4 July issue), the aim of the seminar was to help Christians
"understand Islamic beliefs and culture and, after the September
11 attacks, why some Muslims engage in terrorism".
The three "reverts" attended the seminar on the advice
of May Helou, a member of the ICV who was at the time employed
by Victoria's Equal Opportunity Commission to assist in education
about the R&RT Act.
This case has set a precedent that vilification (saying or writing
things that incite hatred, contempt, or ridicule) of a religious
belief or practice may be regarded as equivalent to vilification
of the people who believe or follow that religion.
The case has also demonstrated just how fragile justice can be
when religious disputes are decided in secular courts. Daniel
Scot was deemed to be "not credible" simply because
the judge did not believe (and in some cases, understand) his
teaching. Amongst other issues, the judge deemed Scot "not
credible" and guilty of vilification on the grounds that
he was frequently referring to Wahhabi, literal interpretations
of the Koran, which are not, in the judge's personal opinion,
relevant to the 21st Century. As noted by one observer, "This
development represents a dangerous limitation on freedom of speech
and the capacity of Christians to take up the cause of the persecuted
church."
UPDATE: REMEDY – PASTORS ORDERED TO APOLOGIZE
On Wednesday, June 22, 2005, Judge Higgins of the VCAT handed
down his "remedies" (penalties) to Catch the Fire Ministries
and pastors Nalliah and Scot.
The religion editor of The AGE (Melbourne), Barney Zwartz,
reports, "Judge Michael Higgins, of the Victorian Civil and
Administrative Tribunal, yesterday [22 June] ordered Christian
group Catch the Fire Ministries, Mr. Scot and Mr. Nalliah to publish
apologies for comments made at a Melbourne seminar in March 2002,
and in a newsletter and Web site article.
"Judge Higgins said the pastors were otherwise of good character,
but their passionate religious beliefs caused them to transgress
the law. He ordered them to publish apologies on their Web site,
in their newsletter and in four advertisements in Melbourne newspapers
and to promise not to repeat the vilification anywhere in Australia.
But this order could be defied as early as Monday [27 June], when
Mr. Scot begins a two-week seminar on Islam in Brisbane."
Daniel Scot points out that it was primarily his quotes from
the Koran that had been deemed to vilify Muslims; therefore, it
would very difficult to obey the judge's order not to repeat the
vilification without a Koran that has been suitably edited. "I
told the judge earlier," Scot informed The AGE,
"you haven't provided me with a new Koran with the illegal
verses removed, so I have to use the same Koran. He doesn't say
which parts I quoted are illegal, he is asking a very vague thing."
Scot told TIME magazine's Elizabeth Keenan that he believes
his real offense was "talking about the parts of the Koran
that Muslims want to hide from people".
Nalliah and Scot have vowed to go to jail rather than publish
newspaper apologies, the wording and size of which have been ordained
by the tribunal and will cost AUD$68,690 (USD$52,740). Scot will
not suspend his teaching seminars. "You don't compromise
truth for fear of jail," Scot told The AGE. Likewise
Nalliah told The AGE that he would not surrender "freedom
of speech to a law which is sharia law by stealth".
The AGE reports, "The pastors' lawyers have already
appealed against the verdict to the Supreme Court, claiming that
the act is unconstitutional and that Judge Higgins made errors
and showed 'irredeemable bias'. The case will be heard next month
[July]."
NEW CASES
The Incarcerated Child-Abusing Witch v. The Salvation
Army, Corrections Victoria, and ALPHA Course
Robin Fletcher, a professed and practicing witch who is serving
a 10-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of two under-age
girls in 1998, voluntarily attended an ALPHA course in Ararat
prison. The course was run by a Salvation Army chaplain. Fletcher
lodged complaints against the Salvation Army, Corrections Victoria
(prison managers), and CMC Australasia Pty Ltd (the distributors
of the ALPHA course in Victoria) on the grounds that the course
vilifies witches, Wiccans, and pagans (Link 2).
The Occult Order v. the Child Rights Campaigner
The occult group Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) has made a complaint
against psychologist Dr. Reina Michaelson (1997 Young Australian
of the Year) and her organization, Child Sexual Abuse Prevention
Program (CSAPP), for vilification of members of OTO.
OTO national officer David Bottrill and member Brent Gray claim
Dr. Michaelson has vilified and misrepresented OTO through an
Internet article linking the society to paedophilia, satanic rituals,
and animal and child sacrifices, all of which are promoted in
the OTO text The Book of the Law.
The complainants testify, "What is contained on the Web
site could incite hatred and lead to violence against members
of the OTO." Dr. Michaelson meanwhile contends that OTO's
text, The Book of the Law, contains "talk of blood
rituals using children, eating flesh, the sacrifice of a child,
the killing and torture of others and uninhibited 'love' without
restraint", and as such, promotes illegal activity and violence
against children.
The Herald Sun (Melbourne) reports that Ordo Templi
Orientis was founded in Germany in 1902. Members follow the religion
of Thelema, as taught by occultist and mystic Aleister Crowley.
Dr. Reina Michaelson is presently in the Maldives working with
child victims of the Tsunami. She will face the VCAT upon her
return (Link 3).
VICTIMS
Amir Butler, the head of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs
Committee, says that there are Muslims who welcome debate, and
he does not want to see the R&RT Act used to prevent it. Amir
Butler, told TIME magazine, "If Muslims rush to
the courts, some people will get the impression we can't respond
to the arguments and think there must be some truth in them. The
only way to fight offensive ideas is to confront them intellectually.
Legislation cannot make bad ideas disappear."
Social religious harmony, two Christian pastors (who have been
continuously misquoted and vilified in the media), The Salvation
Army, Corrections Victoria, ALPHA, and a child rights advocate,
and those who desire open debate are all victims of this "religious
tolerance" law. But the greatest tragedy in this drama is
that Victorians stand to lose their openness, their religious
openness, and with it, their religious liberty to stand up as
Christian apologists and evangelists, confronting evil and error,
and engaging with the lost on matters of life and death.
The most comprehensive, regularly updated coverage of these cases
can be found at the Saltshakers
Web site . This includes a highly recommended, detailed paper
entitled "Religious
Vilification laws in Victoria - Background to the law and cases
", prepared by Saltshakers' Research Director Jenny Stokes
in June 2005 as a background paper for a Christian Legal Society
seminar.
Links
1) Free
speech farce
Andrew Bolt (Associate Editor - Herald Sun). 24 June 2005
2) Dump
this law now
Andrew Bolt. 27 April 2005
3) Child
rights crusader faces lawsuit
Kate Uebergang, tribunal reporter. 31 May 2005
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/printpage/0,5481,15461960,00.html
Elizabeth Kendal is the Principal Researcher
and Writer for the World
Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC) .
This article was initially written for the World Evangelical Alliance
Religious Liberty News & Analysis mailing list.
Assist News Service is brought to you in part by Open Doors USA,
a ministry that has served the Suffering Church around the world
for nearly 50 years. You can get more information by logging onto
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