Mohammedans to launch political party

[Jewish Nationalist]

Australia’s Muslims Plan to Launch Political Party
By Lawrence Bartlett• AFP • 3/15/07

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia’s Muslims on Monday announced plans to form a political party to fight what they call growing Islamophobia spawned by the so-called war on terror.

The move came as the leader of a Christian party demanded an immediate halt to Islamic immigration to Australia, saying Muslims were beginning to dominate some communities.

Leading the drive for Australia’s 300,000 Muslims to take on the mainstream parties is controversial top cleric Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali, who has the title Mufti of Australia.

Hilali created a storm of protest late last year when he described scantily-dressed women as “uncovered meat” inviting rape.

Faced with calls to get out of the country, the Egyptian-born cleric mocked the convict ancestry of many white Australians, saying Muslims had more right to the country because they paid for their tickets.

Hilali now wants to put a stop to politicians using the Muslim community as a “political football”, his spokesman Keysar Trad said Monday.

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Prime Minister John Howard’s conservative government has been accused of whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment through tough new anti-terrorism laws and tighter immigration controls, including a test on “Australian values”.

The government denies the moves are aimed at Australia’s Muslim community, but Howard has frequently expressed a fear of home-grown Islamic terrorism similar to that which hit London trains and buses in July 2005.

The leader of the Christian Democratic Party, the Reverend Fred Nile, said Monday Australia should call a 10-year moratorium on Muslim immigration and give priority to Christians fleeing persecution in Islamic countries.

Nile, a member of the state parliament in New South Wales, told a radio interviewer he wanted a study to look at the Netherlands and France, where the Muslim minority had become large enough to “flex its muscle”.

“The same thing is happening in our city of Sydney … they (Muslims) concentrate and virtually by population numbers they dominate that actual community,” he told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070312/wl_asia_afp/australiapoliticsreligionislam_070312062403