Historically Australian Muslims had always been Labor voters. Right up until 2000, more than 90% voted Labor without any second thought. Whatever the Labor policies, the majority of Muslims would vote for them.
In 2001 we started campaigning in Labor held areas. We wanted to expose how the Labor party had veered away from many social commitments so important to Muslims and new migrants in general. We asked voters not to vote for Labor in that election.
The Labor party under Kim Beazley found common ground with John Howard’s Liberal government on the issue of boat people. Both parties shared repressive measures and attacks against refugees, boat people and migrants in general.
Our campaign was very successful and saw a large section of Muslims voting for The Greens instead.
At that time the major sell point for The Greens party was the support for refugees. The Greens also seemed to support Palestine against the Israeli aggression and were against racism and Islamophobia.
It was very easy to get Muslims to give their vote to The Greens instead of Labor.
The Liberal party understood very well that it did not benefit from Labor’s loss of votes.
At the end of the day, the Liberal party had worse policies on issues important to Muslims, Arabs and new migrants. The Liberal Muslim members were isolated in the community and were never respected. In the seats with a high Muslim population and migrant voters, the Liberal party had a very low presence.
Political strategists from the Liberal party came up with a Machiavellian idea: the need to divide Muslim and migrant communities by making them turn against each other. By achieving this “divide and conquer” strategy, they started getting votes from Muslims.
Liberal members, in these already divided communities, will use the approach “Labor is as bad as the Liberals so why not vote Liberal for a change”.
The right logic should be instead “If Labor and Liberals are equally bad why not vote for independents or other minor parties?”.
The majority of Labor Muslim members are progressive. They are well-educated and secular. Among them also are socialist or nationalists. These Muslims resisted the Liberals’ bid to infiltrate and recruit them.
It is at this stage that the Liberals resorted to recruit extreme elements among Muslim communities.
The recruitment of extremists will achieve many goals:
- Extremists who are rejected by their own communities because of their extreme ideology will welcome anyone who is willing to give them a voice and a space to breath in the public life.
- The supporters of these extremists don’t follow any logic or facts and will blindly follow their “imams” even if this means voting for anti-Muslim politicians.
- Extreme elements are usually recruited from jail systems. These individuals will serve as “muscle” and will be used to intimidate and silence opponents who dare question the benefits of voting an anti-Muslim party.
The Liberals started this evil agenda by infiltrating the Lebanese Moslem Association. This association survived financially on community donations. The Liberal government of John Howard promised millions of dollars in funding in return for abandoning the alliance with Labor.
The deal was sealed between the LMA and Liberal government in 2005.
The first demand from the Howard government was to sack the entire board of directors and appoint a new one headed by a Liberal member.
As soon as the money started to flow in, the new management abandoned all past commitments and practices.
For the first time in a decade, the LMA invited to speak at their Eid celebration, Phillip Ruddock the most anti Muslim politicians around.
Mr Ruddock gave a fiery speech accusing the Muslim communities of “extremism” and demanded the communities to accept Western values.
The LMA board went even further by appointing a Liberal member of Auburn council as president, (Tom Zreika). The new president acted as a member of the Liberal party and not as a director of a Muslim organisation.
He was part of many Liberal conspiracies against moderate leaders who opposed the Liberal party’s extreme policies.
The first task was to oust the spiritual leader of the community and organisation: sheikh Taj AL Din Al Hilaly. At some stage Mr Zreika went as far as contacting ASIO to complain against Sheikh Taj’s support for the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance.
Meanwhile the money continued to flow to LMA.
To silence all the clever, educated and moderate voices in the area who opposed the alliance with the extreme racist Liberal party, the LMA adopted an extreme version of Islam.
Before the alliance with the Liberal party, the LMA was an organisation known for its corruption and tribal nepotism. After the alliance with the Liberals it became notorious for extremism and radical views.
In the 2011 NSW election, the LMA shocked many with their vocal and public support for Liberal candidates. The LMA premises became the headquarters for the Liberal party election campaign. The same Liberal Party that continued attacking Muslims. The then Minister for Immigration Chris Morrison made many comments during the election campaign stating that Muslim migrants are unable to integrate in the society and should be banned from migrating to Australia.
The LMA created also many fake organisations in the Inner-Western suburbs in a bid to see Labor lose all seats. Despite all this Labor held on to all their seats even if the LMA was declaring the opposite.
During the Syrian crisis the role of the LMA become more vital and devastating. 80% of Australian terrorist who went to Syria were of Lebanese background. Most of these terrorist at some stage were linked to the LMA.
The LMA mosque became a platform for brainwashing and recruiting radicals. At the Imam Ali mosque, managed by the LMA, every Friday prayer was a call to fight. This mosque saw some fiery speeches full of hatred and every time calling to support the “mujahidden”. Many moderate Muslims stopped attending the mosque in disgust. These hate speeches only ceased in 2015.
Millions of dollars continued to pour in under Labor and Liberal consecutive governments. This money was coming in at the very same time the LMA was exposed in the media for issuing extreme fatwas asking Muslims not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas and for holding and broadcasting lectures by terrorist Anwar Al Awlaki.
So far we know why Liberals strongly support the LMA, but what about Labor?
Labor lost its way long time ago and over the years it has got closer to the Liberal party policies and for this reason it lost many votes.
The Labor party for fear of losing more votes has resorted to endorse candidates from the LMA claiming they represented all Muslims.
I am very sure that regardless of where the LMA will stand, any change of Labor policies towards the left, will see a surge of Labor popularity.
In conclusion,
Liberals have succeeded in dividing Muslims by supporting extremists and using them as tools for blackmail, intimidation and threats. This has resulted in some Muslims voting for the Liberal party, despite the fact that the party stands vocally against Muslims interests: against refugees’ rights, against Palestinian rights, support of racism and Islamophobia.
But what was the cost of this dirty game?
3 terrorist attacks, 6 foiled terrorist attacks, high tension in the community and the highest radicalisation level in Australian contemporary history.
To think that some red-necks still vote for Liberals... in addition to some sections in the Muslims community.
#vote_Liberals_Last
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Why is the government funding only extremist organisations to fight extremism?!!
The article in The Australian “$10m for PM’s Islamic guests” (22 June 2016) has revealed that extremist organisations received more than $10 million in government funding. Unfortunately this report has come a little too late.
This report is the first one to be published since the start of the Syrian crisis and the subsequent significant rise of radicalisation.
Despite inundating media outlets about the apparent complacency of our authorities towards extremist and growing radicalisation, media ignored such information.
The article in The Australian however falls short of telling the full story.
After the Lindt Café terrorist attack, Abbott’s Liberal government consulted with “representatives” of the Muslim community on how to deal with out-of-control radicalisation and the possible imminent threats of terrorist activities in Australia.
Surprisingly, the PM office chose to invite mainly extremists to these consultation rounds. The logic behind this was not clear for us: how would extremists help in fighting extremism? Not only, but it became even more unclear and a little “insane”, when after such consultations, the government announced it would increase the funding for projects to fight extremism.
The government allocated more than $50m for these projects.
Once the funding was made available we expected the government would allocate funds to organisations that were not involved in extremist activities.
The NSW Liberal government also announced increased funding for de-radicalisation projects through different departments, including Multicultural NSW.
Since I am a very well-known Anti-extremism campaigner both on a local and national level, I expected that my organisation, Social Justice Network Inc, which runs many anti radicalisation campaigns, would have been one of the first to receive funding.
We expected to be invited for consultations in regards to the allocation of such funds but we were wrong. This however didn’t deter us from applying.
Social Justice Network applied for a small sum of $25,000 which would have helped cover a project we were running. We conducted several meetings and discussions with community members of different faiths/sects. The aim was to consult with different leaders from Sunni, Shia and Alawi faith to discuss and find a solution to the current tensions in the community.
We also hosted an Iftar. Unfortunately we can’t continue without some funding and all we needed was a small contribution from Multicultural NSW to help continue in our efforts.
The project was rejected for no valid reason despite our well documented solid track history in fighting extremism. We put a lot of effort to start the project and asked for a small amount of money. We received a letter advising us the application was rejected. No valid reasons were given.
Multicultural NSW would not even consider the project due to us not providing a financial statement. Usually financial statements are required only from organisations that received prior funding in order to prove how the funds were spent. Since this was our first request we genuinely believed this was not necessary in our case.
Instead of helping organisations complete their applications, like on many other occasions, Multicultural NSW was quick to reject ours without any warning and without requesting further information or documents.
As you can read from article published in The Australian, governments and funding bodies were providing extremist organisations with large grants and funding. Some of these organisations well-known for their extreme actions receive annually millions of dollars. Some of this money was used to broadcast live lectures of terrorist Anwar AL Awlaki and other preachers of hate.
After rejecting funding for our project, we sought help from our local MP. We contacted Greg Laundy, Liberal MP for Reid, and visited him at his office. I explained to him our concerns about authorities’ complacency towards extremists’ activities and funding. We asked him to help us secure some funding for other Anti-extremism projects. Two years have passed and we are yet to hear the outcome.
Wondering where all this extremism come from? Some of the answers to this question can be found in The Australian.
We hope that our authorities change their course of action before a major terrorist attack occurs.
#Vote_4_None
This report is the first one to be published since the start of the Syrian crisis and the subsequent significant rise of radicalisation.
Despite inundating media outlets about the apparent complacency of our authorities towards extremist and growing radicalisation, media ignored such information.
The article in The Australian however falls short of telling the full story.
After the Lindt Café terrorist attack, Abbott’s Liberal government consulted with “representatives” of the Muslim community on how to deal with out-of-control radicalisation and the possible imminent threats of terrorist activities in Australia.
Surprisingly, the PM office chose to invite mainly extremists to these consultation rounds. The logic behind this was not clear for us: how would extremists help in fighting extremism? Not only, but it became even more unclear and a little “insane”, when after such consultations, the government announced it would increase the funding for projects to fight extremism.
The government allocated more than $50m for these projects.
Once the funding was made available we expected the government would allocate funds to organisations that were not involved in extremist activities.
The NSW Liberal government also announced increased funding for de-radicalisation projects through different departments, including Multicultural NSW.
Since I am a very well-known Anti-extremism campaigner both on a local and national level, I expected that my organisation, Social Justice Network Inc, which runs many anti radicalisation campaigns, would have been one of the first to receive funding.
We expected to be invited for consultations in regards to the allocation of such funds but we were wrong. This however didn’t deter us from applying.
Social Justice Network applied for a small sum of $25,000 which would have helped cover a project we were running. We conducted several meetings and discussions with community members of different faiths/sects. The aim was to consult with different leaders from Sunni, Shia and Alawi faith to discuss and find a solution to the current tensions in the community.
We also hosted an Iftar. Unfortunately we can’t continue without some funding and all we needed was a small contribution from Multicultural NSW to help continue in our efforts.
The project was rejected for no valid reason despite our well documented solid track history in fighting extremism. We put a lot of effort to start the project and asked for a small amount of money. We received a letter advising us the application was rejected. No valid reasons were given.
Multicultural NSW would not even consider the project due to us not providing a financial statement. Usually financial statements are required only from organisations that received prior funding in order to prove how the funds were spent. Since this was our first request we genuinely believed this was not necessary in our case.
Instead of helping organisations complete their applications, like on many other occasions, Multicultural NSW was quick to reject ours without any warning and without requesting further information or documents.
As you can read from article published in The Australian, governments and funding bodies were providing extremist organisations with large grants and funding. Some of these organisations well-known for their extreme actions receive annually millions of dollars. Some of this money was used to broadcast live lectures of terrorist Anwar AL Awlaki and other preachers of hate.
After rejecting funding for our project, we sought help from our local MP. We contacted Greg Laundy, Liberal MP for Reid, and visited him at his office. I explained to him our concerns about authorities’ complacency towards extremists’ activities and funding. We asked him to help us secure some funding for other Anti-extremism projects. Two years have passed and we are yet to hear the outcome.
Wondering where all this extremism come from? Some of the answers to this question can be found in The Australian.
We hope that our authorities change their course of action before a major terrorist attack occurs.
#Vote_4_None
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!
(4) Open war on Ian Cohen
After Lee Rhiannon and her faction of mainly ex-Stalinists opportunists realised that they lost their plot to deny Ian Cohen the platform to run for pre-selection, they understood that they were left with one option only. The only option is to campaign against Ian in the election in a bid to see him lose, and so enforce his retirement with deep humiliation. In 2003, the Greens were standing on 7-8% in all opinion polls. Ian needs only 4.5% to win. Maybe less with some good preferences.
To see Ian lose was very difficult shot, for many reasons:
- It is very difficult to cause total collapse of Greens popularity, to this low point.
- Any attack on Ian, means attack on the Greens party... the party that Lee represents in NSW LC.
Despite all these, Lee and her faction did not hesitate to gamble with everything to achieve her dream of absolutely controlling the NSW Greens. I was told by Ian Cohen at later stage that Lee had the dream to destabilise Bob Brown’s leadership by challenging him, to replace him in Greens leadership.
Lee faction’s tactics are very simple: attack Ian on personal level by claiming that he is personally a very conservative person that is not compatible with the image of the Greens as progressive party.
The attacks were comprehensive and vicious: there was an all-out-war against him. They did not leave any personal level they did not expose or demonise. Lies, fabrications and sometimes true personal incidents.
The levels of attacks were:
1- Old man with no energy: dead man walking
2- Ian’s marital status: and his different relations with different women.
3- Ian’s background as former citizen of “Israel”
1- Despite the fact that Ian and Lee were born in the same year, Lee spread euphoria against Ian that he is old politician, lost his energy and became very exhausted. The attack had several goals to achieve. Lee did not only want Ian to lose his popularity and so lose in the election. She wanted him to come out of the election with deep scars, possibly deeply depressed and humiliated. By achieving this, even if Ian wins the election, he will re-consider his career on the long run. And this is what she wanted to achieve, as she was almost sure that Ian will win in the election.
Lee and her faction were very vicious in their attack on Ian’s mental status. There is no doubt that the campaign left its toll on Ian’s mental status. But more importantly, by the end of the campaign the party was deeply and bitterly divided. Ian was left with deep scars on his credibility and morale. Lee used all kind of lies and deceptive claims against Ian. And Ian and his faction would not forget this to Lee and her faction.
2- Lee spread roumers that Ian is treating women very badly. The roumers, that were communicated to me personally by Ian’s ex-girlfriend and strong supporter of Lee: he was cheating on her, treated her badly, no respect ....
3- As I said that even before the pre-selection process was concluded, I was approached by Geoff Ash and John Kaye asking me not to vote for Ian because he is Zionist. After he was pre-selected, I, with other party candidate, were approached again and were asked about what we think of Ian’s running for election. We (both of us are Muslims) were asked about Muslim and Palestinian communities’ opinion of Ian Cohen running for election. John Kaye asked us “did you hear any communities’ criticism of Greens decision to run “Zionist Jew” for NSW?”... I personally felt that John was directing us to attack Ian among Muslim and Palestinian communities on this particular issue.
Lee tactics did not work. Ian won election. He served in NSW LC for full term. He did not retire until he enforced Lee faction to agree to have balanced parliamentary team. He retired only when he secured 2 of his faction members (Jan Barham and Cate Faehrmann) to be MLCs in 2011.
But the campaign had negative impact on the Greens unity, until now. The party had two factions that are fighting to break each other at all levels. In 2010 federal election, Ian’s faction refused to help Lee in her election campaign. NSW candidate, not other than Lee herself, got the least votes among Greens candidates for the senate. All candidates got around 13% of primary vote, where Lee got less than 10%. She nearly lost in that election, when all other candidates won comfortably, most of them on primaries.
I need to mention here that in writing my notes here, I am not siding with Ian against Lee on any ideological issue. On the contrary. I had always trouble with Ian’s conservative views. But Ian was always ready to share power, respect others’ views and respect any deal he makes. Lee, on the other side, was lying at all levels. She will pretend to be progressive, when in fact she has no commitment towards any social justice issues and had no achievement in her long political career. She is not a politician that could be respected. And she is power-thirsty, with no willing to share power.
After Lee Rhiannon and her faction of mainly ex-Stalinists opportunists realised that they lost their plot to deny Ian Cohen the platform to run for pre-selection, they understood that they were left with one option only. The only option is to campaign against Ian in the election in a bid to see him lose, and so enforce his retirement with deep humiliation. In 2003, the Greens were standing on 7-8% in all opinion polls. Ian needs only 4.5% to win. Maybe less with some good preferences.
To see Ian lose was very difficult shot, for many reasons:
- It is very difficult to cause total collapse of Greens popularity, to this low point.
- Any attack on Ian, means attack on the Greens party... the party that Lee represents in NSW LC.
Despite all these, Lee and her faction did not hesitate to gamble with everything to achieve her dream of absolutely controlling the NSW Greens. I was told by Ian Cohen at later stage that Lee had the dream to destabilise Bob Brown’s leadership by challenging him, to replace him in Greens leadership.
Lee faction’s tactics are very simple: attack Ian on personal level by claiming that he is personally a very conservative person that is not compatible with the image of the Greens as progressive party.
The attacks were comprehensive and vicious: there was an all-out-war against him. They did not leave any personal level they did not expose or demonise. Lies, fabrications and sometimes true personal incidents.
The levels of attacks were:
1- Old man with no energy: dead man walking
2- Ian’s marital status: and his different relations with different women.
3- Ian’s background as former citizen of “Israel”
1- Despite the fact that Ian and Lee were born in the same year, Lee spread euphoria against Ian that he is old politician, lost his energy and became very exhausted. The attack had several goals to achieve. Lee did not only want Ian to lose his popularity and so lose in the election. She wanted him to come out of the election with deep scars, possibly deeply depressed and humiliated. By achieving this, even if Ian wins the election, he will re-consider his career on the long run. And this is what she wanted to achieve, as she was almost sure that Ian will win in the election.
Lee and her faction were very vicious in their attack on Ian’s mental status. There is no doubt that the campaign left its toll on Ian’s mental status. But more importantly, by the end of the campaign the party was deeply and bitterly divided. Ian was left with deep scars on his credibility and morale. Lee used all kind of lies and deceptive claims against Ian. And Ian and his faction would not forget this to Lee and her faction.
2- Lee spread roumers that Ian is treating women very badly. The roumers, that were communicated to me personally by Ian’s ex-girlfriend and strong supporter of Lee: he was cheating on her, treated her badly, no respect ....
3- As I said that even before the pre-selection process was concluded, I was approached by Geoff Ash and John Kaye asking me not to vote for Ian because he is Zionist. After he was pre-selected, I, with other party candidate, were approached again and were asked about what we think of Ian’s running for election. We (both of us are Muslims) were asked about Muslim and Palestinian communities’ opinion of Ian Cohen running for election. John Kaye asked us “did you hear any communities’ criticism of Greens decision to run “Zionist Jew” for NSW?”... I personally felt that John was directing us to attack Ian among Muslim and Palestinian communities on this particular issue.
Lee tactics did not work. Ian won election. He served in NSW LC for full term. He did not retire until he enforced Lee faction to agree to have balanced parliamentary team. He retired only when he secured 2 of his faction members (Jan Barham and Cate Faehrmann) to be MLCs in 2011.
But the campaign had negative impact on the Greens unity, until now. The party had two factions that are fighting to break each other at all levels. In 2010 federal election, Ian’s faction refused to help Lee in her election campaign. NSW candidate, not other than Lee herself, got the least votes among Greens candidates for the senate. All candidates got around 13% of primary vote, where Lee got less than 10%. She nearly lost in that election, when all other candidates won comfortably, most of them on primaries.
I need to mention here that in writing my notes here, I am not siding with Ian against Lee on any ideological issue. On the contrary. I had always trouble with Ian’s conservative views. But Ian was always ready to share power, respect others’ views and respect any deal he makes. Lee, on the other side, was lying at all levels. She will pretend to be progressive, when in fact she has no commitment towards any social justice issues and had no achievement in her long political career. She is not a politician that could be respected. And she is power-thirsty, with no willing to share power.
Wednesday, June 08, 2016
The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!
3) After failure of adopting Limited Tenure: Do not vote for Zionist...!!
After Lee and her faction failed to enforce the Greens to adopt Limited Tenure to oust Ian Cohen automatically, Lee resorted to new tactics. She was desperate, as she knew that without outsing Ian, he will win any pre-selection campaign.
Lee and her faction started to campaign to change the pre-selection process. She initiated new campaign to embarrass Ian to enforce him to retire.
The idea was to change the pre-election ballot papers to include new box: “I dis-endorse the candidate....”.
Her dumb idea was simple: If Ian cannot be ousted by Limited Tenure principle, then Lee would conduct vicious campaign against him to get large number of Greens members to dis-endorse him. Even if the campaign will not get the required percentage to enforce Ian’s disendorsment, he will feel embarrassed and ashamed from high percentage of people disendorsing him.
She was successful in introducing new process for pre-selection of leading candidates. The new box was listed on all ballot papers. The job of starting vicious campaign of Ian’s character assassination and demonisation started in full swing.
Lee and her team started the cheap campaign against colleague. The team responsible for manufacturing and spreading dirt about Ian was mainly managed by her partner Geoff Ash and her puppet the late MLC John Kaye. The couple was very active on managing networks of Greens members supporters of Lee to spread all kind of dirt on Ian.
Strong supporter of Lee, tried to convince me not to vote for Ian and tick the box of disendorsing him because he is “dead man walking”. She had brief relation with Ian, and started to spread horrible stories about him.
Other Lee’s supporters started to spread all kind of dirt on Ian, from “dead man walking”, “deeply exhausted”, “old man that cannot achieve anything anymore”, “conservative”, “regressive”, “had no commitments to social-justice issues” and other accusations.
Lee and her team did not spare any dirty trick in their bid to make Ian look evil.
I was personally approached by Lee’s team, as I was representing the hard-left faction inside the Greens. Lee would have trouble to convince members of her dirty attacks on Ian, if I continued my silence on these campaigns. At many stages, I refuted these claims.
Lee’s special aids, Geoff Ash and John Kaye, met with me on at least two occasions. Their message was direct. I should join the campaign, as I should have personal problem with Ian.
Geoff Ash and John Kaye put it straight to me “how would you support Zionist Ian”.
John Kaye and Geoff Ash were very clear that Ian was extreme Zionist and all what I am hearing from him about supporting Palestine state are lies. John Kaye, and in his bid to convince me to vote against Ian and participate in the campaign to demonise him, told me that Ian is attending Zionist synagogues after each speech at pro-Palestinian rally to apologise for the supporting words on the need to establish Palestinian state. He even showed me articles on Australian Jews News newspaper of Ian’s attending synagogues.
Lee and her team were very desperate to get rid of Ian. They knew that he is the last obstacle for them to totally control the NSW Greens party. By enforcing Ian’s early retirement, Lee’s faction would easily control the Greens parliamentary team and other executive committees.
While I did not vote for Ian, because I deeply believed in power-sharing, I refused to buy Lee and her factions’ lies. And I did not participate in the campaign to demonise him.
Lee’s campaign to get enough disendorsing votes failed miserably. And Ian won pre-selection easily.
To date, I did not believe how Ian remained calm on these back-stabbing from supposedly colleagues and comrades in the same party fighting for the same vision.
Not only this. Ian and his faction (based around Byron Bay and NSW North coast) were still cooperating with Lee and her faction. They did not return the fire when Lee ran for pre-selection in 2006 (for 2007 NSW election).
Of course Lee and her faction did not give up, after Ian’s securing pre-selection for 2003 election. The dirty campaign against Ian continued.
After Lee and her faction failed to enforce the Greens to adopt Limited Tenure to oust Ian Cohen automatically, Lee resorted to new tactics. She was desperate, as she knew that without outsing Ian, he will win any pre-selection campaign.
Lee and her faction started to campaign to change the pre-selection process. She initiated new campaign to embarrass Ian to enforce him to retire.
The idea was to change the pre-election ballot papers to include new box: “I dis-endorse the candidate....”.
Her dumb idea was simple: If Ian cannot be ousted by Limited Tenure principle, then Lee would conduct vicious campaign against him to get large number of Greens members to dis-endorse him. Even if the campaign will not get the required percentage to enforce Ian’s disendorsment, he will feel embarrassed and ashamed from high percentage of people disendorsing him.
She was successful in introducing new process for pre-selection of leading candidates. The new box was listed on all ballot papers. The job of starting vicious campaign of Ian’s character assassination and demonisation started in full swing.
Lee and her team started the cheap campaign against colleague. The team responsible for manufacturing and spreading dirt about Ian was mainly managed by her partner Geoff Ash and her puppet the late MLC John Kaye. The couple was very active on managing networks of Greens members supporters of Lee to spread all kind of dirt on Ian.
Strong supporter of Lee, tried to convince me not to vote for Ian and tick the box of disendorsing him because he is “dead man walking”. She had brief relation with Ian, and started to spread horrible stories about him.
Other Lee’s supporters started to spread all kind of dirt on Ian, from “dead man walking”, “deeply exhausted”, “old man that cannot achieve anything anymore”, “conservative”, “regressive”, “had no commitments to social-justice issues” and other accusations.
Lee and her team did not spare any dirty trick in their bid to make Ian look evil.
I was personally approached by Lee’s team, as I was representing the hard-left faction inside the Greens. Lee would have trouble to convince members of her dirty attacks on Ian, if I continued my silence on these campaigns. At many stages, I refuted these claims.
Lee’s special aids, Geoff Ash and John Kaye, met with me on at least two occasions. Their message was direct. I should join the campaign, as I should have personal problem with Ian.
Geoff Ash and John Kaye put it straight to me “how would you support Zionist Ian”.
John Kaye and Geoff Ash were very clear that Ian was extreme Zionist and all what I am hearing from him about supporting Palestine state are lies. John Kaye, and in his bid to convince me to vote against Ian and participate in the campaign to demonise him, told me that Ian is attending Zionist synagogues after each speech at pro-Palestinian rally to apologise for the supporting words on the need to establish Palestinian state. He even showed me articles on Australian Jews News newspaper of Ian’s attending synagogues.
Lee and her team were very desperate to get rid of Ian. They knew that he is the last obstacle for them to totally control the NSW Greens party. By enforcing Ian’s early retirement, Lee’s faction would easily control the Greens parliamentary team and other executive committees.
While I did not vote for Ian, because I deeply believed in power-sharing, I refused to buy Lee and her factions’ lies. And I did not participate in the campaign to demonise him.
Lee’s campaign to get enough disendorsing votes failed miserably. And Ian won pre-selection easily.
To date, I did not believe how Ian remained calm on these back-stabbing from supposedly colleagues and comrades in the same party fighting for the same vision.
Not only this. Ian and his faction (based around Byron Bay and NSW North coast) were still cooperating with Lee and her faction. They did not return the fire when Lee ran for pre-selection in 2006 (for 2007 NSW election).
Of course Lee and her faction did not give up, after Ian’s securing pre-selection for 2003 election. The dirty campaign against Ian continued.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!
(2) Advocating Limited Tenure but still in politics for 2 decades!!!
As Lee had clear vision that she cannot totally control the party until she gets rid of her main rival and historical champion of environmental movement Ian Cohen, she invented another campaign in the lead up to pre-selection campaign to select the lead candidate for 2003 NSW Election. She was desperate to get rid of Ian Cohen to have absolute monopoly on the party. This is why between 2001-2003 Lee campaigned very hard to convince the party to introduce another amendment to the party constitution to enforce “limited tenure” for its politicians.
If amendment adopted, Ian Cohen will be barred automatically from running for re-election.
The campaign was very vicious. It risked dividing the party. She wrote countless articles, organised forums and toured the state to convince party members to accept the amendments.
What she suggested was that politicians became corrupt with power. To solve the issue, the party should limit the time politicians can serve in parliament to one term in the senate (or LC) and two terms in the parliament (or LA). By limiting the time in office, politicians will not gain much influence and could not build empire using their title. They will also know that whatever they do, they cannot serve more than one time (maximum 8 years).
The campaign built momentum, but most of the party members were not ready to enforce historical figures (Bob Brown, Ian Cohen....) into early retirement. Few inside the party knew the real agenda behind the suggested amendment.
For me, it was fair. I supported it in principle. But actually later on I opposed the agenda behind it. Lee was using argument of the need to stop building empire to build her own empire. That was not right.
Despite her high profile campaign, many time with leaks to media and other parties’ rivals, she failed to introduce the amendments before the pre-selection process started. Ian Cohen, and despite the bruises of the campaign, was determined to run in the election. He and his faction realised Lee’s real agenda of empire building. And they were determined to abort it. They were besieged, as Lee started to use abusive and humiliating phrases by accusing Ian and his faction of being not ready to share power. At some stage she accused them of standing against progressive changes.
Despite all these attempts, Lee and her faction failed to introduce these constitutional changes before the due date for pre-selection process. Another round of failed attempts to sideline Ian Cohen and his environmental faction.
All party members were waiting to see how Lee will react after her failed attempt. They were waiting to see if she will pursue the campaign to introduce Limited Tenure principle after Ian’s survival.
To the surprise of all, Lee totally abandoned the idea after her failure to introduce amendments to bar Ian’s re-election. Many thoughts that she will honour her principle of limited tenure and will self-impose the idea on her career. Many thought that she will retire after the end of her term in parliament on 2007.
Lee, who fought very hard to arguing that long-time in politics corrupts politicians and so there is desperate need to impose limited tenure, she refused to honour this commitment. Instead of retiring after serving 8 years in politics, she still serves in the parliament for two decades. And still seeking re-election for another 6 years.
How can Australians trust such politician that lied about almost everything, including stabbing her own party’s politicians in the back?!!!
Will you support such politician?
As Lee had clear vision that she cannot totally control the party until she gets rid of her main rival and historical champion of environmental movement Ian Cohen, she invented another campaign in the lead up to pre-selection campaign to select the lead candidate for 2003 NSW Election. She was desperate to get rid of Ian Cohen to have absolute monopoly on the party. This is why between 2001-2003 Lee campaigned very hard to convince the party to introduce another amendment to the party constitution to enforce “limited tenure” for its politicians.
If amendment adopted, Ian Cohen will be barred automatically from running for re-election.
The campaign was very vicious. It risked dividing the party. She wrote countless articles, organised forums and toured the state to convince party members to accept the amendments.
What she suggested was that politicians became corrupt with power. To solve the issue, the party should limit the time politicians can serve in parliament to one term in the senate (or LC) and two terms in the parliament (or LA). By limiting the time in office, politicians will not gain much influence and could not build empire using their title. They will also know that whatever they do, they cannot serve more than one time (maximum 8 years).
The campaign built momentum, but most of the party members were not ready to enforce historical figures (Bob Brown, Ian Cohen....) into early retirement. Few inside the party knew the real agenda behind the suggested amendment.
For me, it was fair. I supported it in principle. But actually later on I opposed the agenda behind it. Lee was using argument of the need to stop building empire to build her own empire. That was not right.
Despite her high profile campaign, many time with leaks to media and other parties’ rivals, she failed to introduce the amendments before the pre-selection process started. Ian Cohen, and despite the bruises of the campaign, was determined to run in the election. He and his faction realised Lee’s real agenda of empire building. And they were determined to abort it. They were besieged, as Lee started to use abusive and humiliating phrases by accusing Ian and his faction of being not ready to share power. At some stage she accused them of standing against progressive changes.
Despite all these attempts, Lee and her faction failed to introduce these constitutional changes before the due date for pre-selection process. Another round of failed attempts to sideline Ian Cohen and his environmental faction.
All party members were waiting to see how Lee will react after her failed attempt. They were waiting to see if she will pursue the campaign to introduce Limited Tenure principle after Ian’s survival.
To the surprise of all, Lee totally abandoned the idea after her failure to introduce amendments to bar Ian’s re-election. Many thoughts that she will honour her principle of limited tenure and will self-impose the idea on her career. Many thought that she will retire after the end of her term in parliament on 2007.
Lee, who fought very hard to arguing that long-time in politics corrupts politicians and so there is desperate need to impose limited tenure, she refused to honour this commitment. Instead of retiring after serving 8 years in politics, she still serves in the parliament for two decades. And still seeking re-election for another 6 years.
How can Australians trust such politician that lied about almost everything, including stabbing her own party’s politicians in the back?!!!
Will you support such politician?
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Memoirs of a victim of Wahhabi violence
1) When security agencies siding with extremists!!!
After my recent bad experience with AFP, who conspired with the Lebanese authorities to ban me from entering that country, memories of early bad experiences with security agencies came flashing back.
Australians need to understand where all this radicalisation came from. In the next few weeks I will highlight my experience of the possible reasons.
On 21 August 2012, upon receiving a message of my friend Khaldoun, I shared a link on Facebook. The link was about the first Australian who had died in Syria fighting alongside terrorists. At the same time his supporters here in Australia (all extremists) were spreading lies and hailing him as a hero aid worker.
Within minutes of me posting the link calling this man for what he really was, a terrorist, I started receiving hundreds of abusing and threatening messages. At that time, we were amid council election and I was running for a spot on Auburn council. The other major parties were running Lebanese background locals as leading candidates. Both originally from Al Minieh in the north of Lebanon.
Surprisingly, I was the only person who was receiving abusive and threatening messages. Khaldoun, a well-known active community member, never received similar threats.
Once the threats become serious I reported them to Auburn police station. I was sure the police would take such threats seriously especially the death threats and the threats to kidnap and rape my children.
All these threats came after I “dared” criticise a well-known radical extremist. This whole saga was about terrorism links and radicalisation in our society.
Instead, every time I attended Auburn police station to report such threats I was treated with utter contempt.
On 27 August 2012 while walking along a main commercial strip in Auburn, I was surrounded by a group of extremists who blocked my path outside Al Bukhari bookstore. These individuals started shouting, pushing me and threatened to kill me. I didn’t want to escalate matters by calling on friends and supporters to come and assist me, instead I opted to take refuge into Auburn police station which was situated less than 50 metres away from where this serious altercation was taking place.
Again the police took my statement.
I thought this time it would be different since now the threats and abusive language had progressed into physical attacks. I decided to escalate the matter to someone higher than the police.
I collated all the statements I had given to the police, I attached the recording of one of the threatening messages and I wrote a detailed account of what was going on. I sent everything in an email addressed to both the NSW Minister for Police and my local Labor MP and minister for Internal Affairs.
Given the seriousness of all that happened I was convinced that I would promptly receive some kind of communication from either one or both these offices. To the surprise of my family and friends I heard nothing!
I decided to follow up with a phone call to my local MP’s office Jason Clare and the office of the Minister for Police. Both staff members who answered the phone suggested I go to my local police station. The staff member at Jason Clare’s office even volunteered to give me the number of the police hotline.
Still dumbfounded by the lack of support from authorities I started contacting several journalists with whom I had worked together in the past. Again I was surprised by the lack of interest in such a story especially when it had been all over the media about the death of the Australian terrorist.
The only journalist who was interested was Dan Box from The Australian.
After The Australian published “Syrian conflict fires local Muslim strife” (30 August 2012), things moved very quickly.
On the same day, 30 August, I received a phone call from Auburn police station asking for a meeting to discuss things. I was so angry and disappointed from both police station and the minster that I refused to meet with them. A friend at the station called again and urged me to come to a meeting. I agreed to meet with them at around 2 pm.
At the meeting there were three people: agent of Anti-terrorism task force, commander of Flemington Area Command and community liaison officer.
The polite atmosphere did not last long. Surprisingly, the agent from Anti-terrorism taskforce accused me of provoking the extremists with my comments about Mustapha Al Majzoub and my referral to him as terrorist. Following is what was said in that room between myself and the taskforce agent.
Jamal: but he is a terrorist.
Agent: how do you know that he is terrorist?
Jamal: from the reports on your desk
Agent: what? How do you know?
Jamal: so you and your minister think that I am an amateur activist who has no information or networks?
At this stage, the language of the debate had changed.
Agent: but we are concerned about your safety
Jamal: good, my safety does not mean that I should be silenced or my democratic rights violated. I have the right to express my thoughts freely and enjoy the safety and respect. If others do not like my comments or articles, they can resort to legal system, not to bullying and assaults.
Agent: but we are dealing with organised criminal networks.
Jamal: this is your job to insure safety and security among our society. If I can’t express my opinion then I might as well move to Saudi Arabia or Qatar. If my migration was about improving my financial situation only, I will be better off working in Saudi Arabia.
The meeting was concluded with the promise of action to end the campaign of threats and bullying against me.
I was asked by the anti-terror taskforce agent not to leak to the media about the details of this meeting. I assured the agent that this will remain between us as long as they would help improve the situation.
The meeting was the first serious meeting with some officials to communicate my concerns.
Surprisingly, following the meeting, I ceased to receive threats. No more sms, minimal Facebook abusive comments, no further phone calls and no more confrontations in the streets. Even on Election Day, we did not experience any serious incident.
Relating to AFP saga of conspiring with foreign power against well-respected community active member, the lack of police actions against extremists’ threats, assaults and violence have very serious meaning.
I hate to conclude that our security agencies directly or indirectly, actively or subtly publicly or secretly were responsible somehow of radicalisation reaching this serious level never seen in Australian history.
No clever person can be convinced that within less than 5 years, radicalisation in this country could have reached this level without the help or inaction by our authorities.
Authorities need to come and tell my family why they ignored our suffering for years.
It is still vivid in my mind the day I was accused of “asking for it”. It was my fault that extremists were threatening to kill me only for expressing an opinion (which turned out to be true anyway).
Despite all that has happened to me and my family, despite our authorities conspiring against me siding with the extremist, despite been let down by our security agencies, despite all this, I am still proud to be in the frontline of fighting against radicals.
In the next article: when authorities recognise and award extremists for spreading extremism...
After my recent bad experience with AFP, who conspired with the Lebanese authorities to ban me from entering that country, memories of early bad experiences with security agencies came flashing back.
Australians need to understand where all this radicalisation came from. In the next few weeks I will highlight my experience of the possible reasons.
On 21 August 2012, upon receiving a message of my friend Khaldoun, I shared a link on Facebook. The link was about the first Australian who had died in Syria fighting alongside terrorists. At the same time his supporters here in Australia (all extremists) were spreading lies and hailing him as a hero aid worker.
Within minutes of me posting the link calling this man for what he really was, a terrorist, I started receiving hundreds of abusing and threatening messages. At that time, we were amid council election and I was running for a spot on Auburn council. The other major parties were running Lebanese background locals as leading candidates. Both originally from Al Minieh in the north of Lebanon.
Surprisingly, I was the only person who was receiving abusive and threatening messages. Khaldoun, a well-known active community member, never received similar threats.
Once the threats become serious I reported them to Auburn police station. I was sure the police would take such threats seriously especially the death threats and the threats to kidnap and rape my children.
All these threats came after I “dared” criticise a well-known radical extremist. This whole saga was about terrorism links and radicalisation in our society.
Instead, every time I attended Auburn police station to report such threats I was treated with utter contempt.
On 27 August 2012 while walking along a main commercial strip in Auburn, I was surrounded by a group of extremists who blocked my path outside Al Bukhari bookstore. These individuals started shouting, pushing me and threatened to kill me. I didn’t want to escalate matters by calling on friends and supporters to come and assist me, instead I opted to take refuge into Auburn police station which was situated less than 50 metres away from where this serious altercation was taking place.
Again the police took my statement.
I thought this time it would be different since now the threats and abusive language had progressed into physical attacks. I decided to escalate the matter to someone higher than the police.
I collated all the statements I had given to the police, I attached the recording of one of the threatening messages and I wrote a detailed account of what was going on. I sent everything in an email addressed to both the NSW Minister for Police and my local Labor MP and minister for Internal Affairs.
Given the seriousness of all that happened I was convinced that I would promptly receive some kind of communication from either one or both these offices. To the surprise of my family and friends I heard nothing!
I decided to follow up with a phone call to my local MP’s office Jason Clare and the office of the Minister for Police. Both staff members who answered the phone suggested I go to my local police station. The staff member at Jason Clare’s office even volunteered to give me the number of the police hotline.
Still dumbfounded by the lack of support from authorities I started contacting several journalists with whom I had worked together in the past. Again I was surprised by the lack of interest in such a story especially when it had been all over the media about the death of the Australian terrorist.
The only journalist who was interested was Dan Box from The Australian.
After The Australian published “Syrian conflict fires local Muslim strife” (30 August 2012), things moved very quickly.
On the same day, 30 August, I received a phone call from Auburn police station asking for a meeting to discuss things. I was so angry and disappointed from both police station and the minster that I refused to meet with them. A friend at the station called again and urged me to come to a meeting. I agreed to meet with them at around 2 pm.
At the meeting there were three people: agent of Anti-terrorism task force, commander of Flemington Area Command and community liaison officer.
The polite atmosphere did not last long. Surprisingly, the agent from Anti-terrorism taskforce accused me of provoking the extremists with my comments about Mustapha Al Majzoub and my referral to him as terrorist. Following is what was said in that room between myself and the taskforce agent.
Jamal: but he is a terrorist.
Agent: how do you know that he is terrorist?
Jamal: from the reports on your desk
Agent: what? How do you know?
Jamal: so you and your minister think that I am an amateur activist who has no information or networks?
At this stage, the language of the debate had changed.
Agent: but we are concerned about your safety
Jamal: good, my safety does not mean that I should be silenced or my democratic rights violated. I have the right to express my thoughts freely and enjoy the safety and respect. If others do not like my comments or articles, they can resort to legal system, not to bullying and assaults.
Agent: but we are dealing with organised criminal networks.
Jamal: this is your job to insure safety and security among our society. If I can’t express my opinion then I might as well move to Saudi Arabia or Qatar. If my migration was about improving my financial situation only, I will be better off working in Saudi Arabia.
The meeting was concluded with the promise of action to end the campaign of threats and bullying against me.
I was asked by the anti-terror taskforce agent not to leak to the media about the details of this meeting. I assured the agent that this will remain between us as long as they would help improve the situation.
The meeting was the first serious meeting with some officials to communicate my concerns.
Surprisingly, following the meeting, I ceased to receive threats. No more sms, minimal Facebook abusive comments, no further phone calls and no more confrontations in the streets. Even on Election Day, we did not experience any serious incident.
Relating to AFP saga of conspiring with foreign power against well-respected community active member, the lack of police actions against extremists’ threats, assaults and violence have very serious meaning.
I hate to conclude that our security agencies directly or indirectly, actively or subtly publicly or secretly were responsible somehow of radicalisation reaching this serious level never seen in Australian history.
No clever person can be convinced that within less than 5 years, radicalisation in this country could have reached this level without the help or inaction by our authorities.
Authorities need to come and tell my family why they ignored our suffering for years.
It is still vivid in my mind the day I was accused of “asking for it”. It was my fault that extremists were threatening to kill me only for expressing an opinion (which turned out to be true anyway).
Despite all that has happened to me and my family, despite our authorities conspiring against me siding with the extremist, despite been let down by our security agencies, despite all this, I am still proud to be in the frontline of fighting against radicals.
In the next article: when authorities recognise and award extremists for spreading extremism...
Thursday, May 26, 2016
I do not support Syrian “revolution” and I vote
Mid September 2014 the media was overwhelmingly reporting about Australian Border Force (ABF) detaining senior extreme preacher in Australia. There is no doubt that many of Australian terrorists currently fighting in Syria is a direct and indirect result of the work of this preacher. Despite this, his brief detention and interrogation at the airport was reported with a language of deep surprise and condemnation even from very conservative Murdoch media.
The media was also quick to report on the Sydney young man who is suing the government for being detained at Sydney airport and prevented from flying overseas.
But surprisingly, there was no media coverage of detaining me for around 2 hours and the subsequent farce of AFP conspiring with foreign authorities to ban me from entering other countries.
The media was very interested in the fact that Australian security agencies were doing their job (incompletely) by interrogating very extreme preacher, who was then allowed to travel freely to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But it did not interest them that a very well-known anti-extremism campaigner was detained at Melbourne airport and interrogated for possible links to ISIS and then was banned from entering other country under request from AFP.
The media was very outspoken that security agencies suspected that Al Qaeda supporter was interrogated at airport for possible links to terrorist organisations. But media was deadly silent and did not react when security agencies detained and interrogated (and then conspired with foreign authorities to restrict movement) very well-known anti-extremism campaigner for possible links to ISIS.
Media until now is deadly silent after we provided them with documents indicate strongly that AFP conspired against community leader and very well respected anti-extremism campaigner!!!
Not only this. Until now, I cannot find a solicitor to act on my behalf to sue the government and enforce them to release full documents. So far, I contacted 5 different solicitors; many of them are very vocal against authorities “violating” rights of known extremists/possible terrorists under the slogan of “defending civil liberties”. None of them agreed to represent me against AFP.
It is very clear the reason for all this. I am proud that I was against the so-called Syrian revolution form the beginning. And this is the real reason behind all this.
Immediately after the authorities started to talk about local terrorism related to Syrian “revolution”, I was contacted by ABC journalist. Immediately she said “you were right on every word you said for the last 4 years”.
This admission did not change much of rhetoric on Syrian “revolution”. The ABC until now still thinks and promotes that what is happening in Syria is revolution and not regime-change conspiracy using terrorist organisations.
While I will write later more extensively about the Syrian “revolution” and how Australian authorities and media risked to compromise our national security supporting this terrorist phenomenon. I want to send simple message here: I totally oppose Syrian “revolution” and I vote.
Wait for our documentary on the issue... Soon...
#AFP_Disclose_Documents
The media was also quick to report on the Sydney young man who is suing the government for being detained at Sydney airport and prevented from flying overseas.
But surprisingly, there was no media coverage of detaining me for around 2 hours and the subsequent farce of AFP conspiring with foreign authorities to ban me from entering other countries.
The media was very interested in the fact that Australian security agencies were doing their job (incompletely) by interrogating very extreme preacher, who was then allowed to travel freely to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But it did not interest them that a very well-known anti-extremism campaigner was detained at Melbourne airport and interrogated for possible links to ISIS and then was banned from entering other country under request from AFP.
The media was very outspoken that security agencies suspected that Al Qaeda supporter was interrogated at airport for possible links to terrorist organisations. But media was deadly silent and did not react when security agencies detained and interrogated (and then conspired with foreign authorities to restrict movement) very well-known anti-extremism campaigner for possible links to ISIS.
Media until now is deadly silent after we provided them with documents indicate strongly that AFP conspired against community leader and very well respected anti-extremism campaigner!!!
Not only this. Until now, I cannot find a solicitor to act on my behalf to sue the government and enforce them to release full documents. So far, I contacted 5 different solicitors; many of them are very vocal against authorities “violating” rights of known extremists/possible terrorists under the slogan of “defending civil liberties”. None of them agreed to represent me against AFP.
It is very clear the reason for all this. I am proud that I was against the so-called Syrian revolution form the beginning. And this is the real reason behind all this.
Immediately after the authorities started to talk about local terrorism related to Syrian “revolution”, I was contacted by ABC journalist. Immediately she said “you were right on every word you said for the last 4 years”.
This admission did not change much of rhetoric on Syrian “revolution”. The ABC until now still thinks and promotes that what is happening in Syria is revolution and not regime-change conspiracy using terrorist organisations.
While I will write later more extensively about the Syrian “revolution” and how Australian authorities and media risked to compromise our national security supporting this terrorist phenomenon. I want to send simple message here: I totally oppose Syrian “revolution” and I vote.
Wait for our documentary on the issue... Soon...
#AFP_Disclose_Documents
Friday, May 20, 2016
The story of Greens politician Lee Rhiannon..!!
(1): Early start
Many progressive or disgruntled voters are thinking to vote for the Greens in the next federal election this coming July, as they are so dissatisfied with the two major parties. They intend to do so based on progressive rhetoric of the Greens party for the last few years, especially when it comes to refugees rights, Palestinian rights, anti-war and public services and assets. What they do not realise that the Greens, while talking nice on many of these issues, but are totally agree in actions with the two major parties on these issues. Not only this. The Greens party in fact has more destructive attitude and agendas than the two major parties, but try to hide them behind progressive rhetoric.
One of the most controversial Greens politicians is Lee Rhiannon. She built an image totally opposite to its real personality and commitments (or lack of commitments).
In the next few weeks, I will record my personal experience with this opportunist politician. I will mention facts, dates, events, discussion exchanges and my own observation and assessment. The rest will lie in your hands for final decision if this politician deserves your vote in the coming election.
I joined the Greens late 2000, after becoming very angry form Labor under Kim Beazley’s leadership that showed no real opposition to destructive conservative agendas of John Howard. I was new to this country, after migrating from Jordan 4 years earlier.
Attending Greens events and meetings, there was one constant face I was seeing. And this person was always vocal on issues of social justice and equality. No matter the subject was, you cannot disagree with her. This was Lee Rhiannon, the MLC in NSW then.
She was very good organiser: she is everywhere, at all events, record details of everything and follows up on previous conversations. This is why she was successful in her empire-building inside the Greens and could sideline many of her rivals.
Immediately after few months of being active in Greens politics, I noticed the heavy division inside the party. Despite the popularity of Lee Rhiannon inside the party, but she could not overcome her weaknesses. The major weakness she has was that she is not real Greens. She was never in environmentalists business.
Lee Rhiannon was member of Stalinist party and had close relations within the former Soviet notorious secret intelligence KGP (as later become much known).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lee and her family became not only politically orphaned. But they also lost the platform they fought for decades. They were lost. This is why she started looking for another platform and another career. And she found this within the Greens party.
When I joined the party in 2000, the party was so small that they were struggling to continue party registration every year. The membership was very little. So they were desperate for any political activists to join. This is why Lee was welcomed.
Soon, she was successful in building her own faction inside the Greens: faction of ex-Stalinists who lost platform after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The other powerful faction was the faction of true environmentalists lead by Ian Cohen in NSW (and Bob Brown federally and in Tasmania). Ian Cohen, conservative but deeply honest and environmental-principled activist, was the first Greens to win a seat in NSW Legislative Council. He was historical figure for Greens movement in NSW (and the country). He was unopposed leader of NSW Greens party, until Lee Rhiannon appeared and joined the party.
The other faction was faction of extreme Zionists based around Eastern suburbs in Sydney. They always advocated that the Greens should focus solely on environmental issues and avoid any action about other social justice issues.
Lee Rhiannon and upon her joining the Greens, and because of her lack of environmental credential and expertise, started immediately advocating social justice issues. She wanted to gain a spot in NSW Legislative Council. This is why she devised, adopted and advocated phenomena of “Affirmative Action” as form of positive discrimination action to increase the representation of “marginalised groups” in the society. And because she does not fit any true marginalised group, she convinced the party that the main marginalised group that is underrepresented in our decision making bodies are “the women”.
Her strategy was simple and clear. She is woman and she will be benefited from any positive discrimination act to promote women to the parliament. Her appeal was easy to convince the party. At the end of the day, it was a party with no deep understanding of any social justice issue. Party that focuses on environment, and lack any understanding of socio-economical inequalities and marginalisation.
As a champion of the newly introduced regulation in the constitution, Lee won nomination to lead the ticket of candidates for the 1999 NSW state election. And she won a seat in LC. Lee knows very well that despite the fact that she lead a campaign on social justice issues to win her nomination, she actually won her seat on environmental issues and she was elected by environmental voters. She won only around 2% of NSW voters.
Lee Rhiannon realised her weakness: Greens party was true environmental party with no commitments and no literature about social justice issues.
To survive this weakness and to build empire inside the party, she needed to destabilise the powerful environmental faction under the leadership of Ian Cohen. She could achieve small fraction of this by introducing to the party’s constitution the principle of “Affirmative Action”. That was tiny victory that did not affect the popularity of rival faction. On the contrary. The rival faction welcomed this amendment and embraced it quickly, especially that the women were already heavily represented inside the party at all level. The issue was just a platform for Lee to win prominence and exploit the amendment for her own agenda.
This is why she started to invent campaigns that mainly target rival factions within the Greens, instead of targeting the rival political parties.
Many progressive or disgruntled voters are thinking to vote for the Greens in the next federal election this coming July, as they are so dissatisfied with the two major parties. They intend to do so based on progressive rhetoric of the Greens party for the last few years, especially when it comes to refugees rights, Palestinian rights, anti-war and public services and assets. What they do not realise that the Greens, while talking nice on many of these issues, but are totally agree in actions with the two major parties on these issues. Not only this. The Greens party in fact has more destructive attitude and agendas than the two major parties, but try to hide them behind progressive rhetoric.
One of the most controversial Greens politicians is Lee Rhiannon. She built an image totally opposite to its real personality and commitments (or lack of commitments).
In the next few weeks, I will record my personal experience with this opportunist politician. I will mention facts, dates, events, discussion exchanges and my own observation and assessment. The rest will lie in your hands for final decision if this politician deserves your vote in the coming election.
I joined the Greens late 2000, after becoming very angry form Labor under Kim Beazley’s leadership that showed no real opposition to destructive conservative agendas of John Howard. I was new to this country, after migrating from Jordan 4 years earlier.
Attending Greens events and meetings, there was one constant face I was seeing. And this person was always vocal on issues of social justice and equality. No matter the subject was, you cannot disagree with her. This was Lee Rhiannon, the MLC in NSW then.
She was very good organiser: she is everywhere, at all events, record details of everything and follows up on previous conversations. This is why she was successful in her empire-building inside the Greens and could sideline many of her rivals.
Immediately after few months of being active in Greens politics, I noticed the heavy division inside the party. Despite the popularity of Lee Rhiannon inside the party, but she could not overcome her weaknesses. The major weakness she has was that she is not real Greens. She was never in environmentalists business.
Lee Rhiannon was member of Stalinist party and had close relations within the former Soviet notorious secret intelligence KGP (as later become much known).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lee and her family became not only politically orphaned. But they also lost the platform they fought for decades. They were lost. This is why she started looking for another platform and another career. And she found this within the Greens party.
When I joined the party in 2000, the party was so small that they were struggling to continue party registration every year. The membership was very little. So they were desperate for any political activists to join. This is why Lee was welcomed.
Soon, she was successful in building her own faction inside the Greens: faction of ex-Stalinists who lost platform after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The other powerful faction was the faction of true environmentalists lead by Ian Cohen in NSW (and Bob Brown federally and in Tasmania). Ian Cohen, conservative but deeply honest and environmental-principled activist, was the first Greens to win a seat in NSW Legislative Council. He was historical figure for Greens movement in NSW (and the country). He was unopposed leader of NSW Greens party, until Lee Rhiannon appeared and joined the party.
The other faction was faction of extreme Zionists based around Eastern suburbs in Sydney. They always advocated that the Greens should focus solely on environmental issues and avoid any action about other social justice issues.
Lee Rhiannon and upon her joining the Greens, and because of her lack of environmental credential and expertise, started immediately advocating social justice issues. She wanted to gain a spot in NSW Legislative Council. This is why she devised, adopted and advocated phenomena of “Affirmative Action” as form of positive discrimination action to increase the representation of “marginalised groups” in the society. And because she does not fit any true marginalised group, she convinced the party that the main marginalised group that is underrepresented in our decision making bodies are “the women”.
Her strategy was simple and clear. She is woman and she will be benefited from any positive discrimination act to promote women to the parliament. Her appeal was easy to convince the party. At the end of the day, it was a party with no deep understanding of any social justice issue. Party that focuses on environment, and lack any understanding of socio-economical inequalities and marginalisation.
As a champion of the newly introduced regulation in the constitution, Lee won nomination to lead the ticket of candidates for the 1999 NSW state election. And she won a seat in LC. Lee knows very well that despite the fact that she lead a campaign on social justice issues to win her nomination, she actually won her seat on environmental issues and she was elected by environmental voters. She won only around 2% of NSW voters.
Lee Rhiannon realised her weakness: Greens party was true environmental party with no commitments and no literature about social justice issues.
To survive this weakness and to build empire inside the party, she needed to destabilise the powerful environmental faction under the leadership of Ian Cohen. She could achieve small fraction of this by introducing to the party’s constitution the principle of “Affirmative Action”. That was tiny victory that did not affect the popularity of rival faction. On the contrary. The rival faction welcomed this amendment and embraced it quickly, especially that the women were already heavily represented inside the party at all level. The issue was just a platform for Lee to win prominence and exploit the amendment for her own agenda.
This is why she started to invent campaigns that mainly target rival factions within the Greens, instead of targeting the rival political parties.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Now they want to topple Albanese: do not be deceived by the Greens
I joined the Greens in late 2000, just before the 2001 Federal election, and in no time I surprisingly had become their spokesperson and delegate for national and state councils. I was also in charge of committees to draw policies.
I soon discovered the reason behind my super quick advancement in the party.
The Greens party was and still is at present day, the most racist party in Australia when it comes to internal multiculturalism. This is the reason why my career advanced so quickly, the Greens wanted to “use my face and name” so that they would be seen multicultural and at the same time cover their racist culture.
After years inside the Greens, I came to understand that all their official talk about progressiveness and commitments were just mere talks only to achieve one goal: power grab only.
The reason I joined the Greens was to achieve socio-economic structural changes to our society. I joined because I believed their slogans of “clean politics” and “alternative voice” which Greens held high at all their rallies, meetings and forums. Sadly, within a few years, I discovered the true nature of this party.
Many other genuine progressive activists who joined the Greens for the same reason I did, soon came to the same conclusion:
The party was saying something and practicing the opposite.
The party that was calling for the abolishment of mandatory detention system, has in reality no commitment towards the suffering of refugees. Up until 2004, ALL Greens politicians admitted to me they never met any asylum seeker who had come by boat. They never visited detention centres. Basically the Greens were commenting on high-profile matters without even having a clear understanding of the issue. All they knew was that by commenting on such matters they would get more media coverage and gain more votes.
During rallies and elections forums they voiced their opposition to Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet up until 2005 they did not have an official policy on the matter. I was actually shocked when Senator Kerry Nettle admitted to me after her win in 2001 that she never heard about Palestine and knew nothing about the issue. She asked me to provide her with literature about the conflict to educate her and her staff about it.
On school funding the Greens official policy is to fund only public schools, however they quickly came to the defence and rather loudly demanded that the government continue the funding of a private Islamic extremist school. At the end of the day the Greens basically endorsed wasting our public money on private schools.
The Greens never had a policy on Multiculturalism prior to me working with them. After much pressure from my side the policy was adopted around 2005. But the Greens hierarchy refused to honour this policy and did not implement any item on its agenda. Until now, the non-English speaking representation in key positions is close to Nil.
My time with the Greens was very disappointing and disheartening by the end. It was actually a bit of a shock to discover that while the official talk was to work in achieving socio-economic changes, the reality instead was “how to win more votes”. There was at no time any real evaluation of what was or could have been achieved.
The Greens repeated attempts to make deals with the right-wing Liberal party controlled by neo-liberal elements was the final straw for me and in 2006 I resigned.
So much for all the talk on “clean politics” and being a progressive party!
Here we have a party that embraces and encourages democracy whilst at the same time makes deals with a right-wing government in order to suffocate that same democracy by changing the senate voting system.
The Greens are also negotiating intensively with the conservative Liberal party to swap preference. This will enable the current government to stay in power for another term and allow the same conservative agenda of attacking our Medicare, tertiary education, Welfare system and humanitarian intake.
“Actions speak louder than words” is the perfect quote for the Greens party.
The Greens have made a lot of noise on “clean politics”, “socio-economic changes”, “refugees rights”, “public money for public services” and “progressive politics”.
But in reality, the actions and achievements are completely the opposite.
In order to stay in power, they would rather see Tony Abbott as PM.
They also wish to see a continuation of “boat people” suffering, more cuts to our public education and health. All this for one reason: the Greens survive on the failures of others.
The Greens have never achieved any progressive change in our society even after years of been part of the government.
The Greens Don Quixotic approach wants to hide their failure in achieving any real progressive change by hiding behind more rhetoric. The attack on Anthony Albanese is a clear example. The Greens want to silence and get rid of one of the most progressive Labor politicians.
The Greens party is a power thirsty party with no commitment to any noble goal. This is why after 40 years in political life; they achieved very little. And this is why I left the Greens.
I cannot endorse voting for Labor, on moral grounds. But definitely, I want to see that Albanese stays in parliament fighting for socio-economic changes that his Greens opponents never fought for.
I soon discovered the reason behind my super quick advancement in the party.
The Greens party was and still is at present day, the most racist party in Australia when it comes to internal multiculturalism. This is the reason why my career advanced so quickly, the Greens wanted to “use my face and name” so that they would be seen multicultural and at the same time cover their racist culture.
After years inside the Greens, I came to understand that all their official talk about progressiveness and commitments were just mere talks only to achieve one goal: power grab only.
The reason I joined the Greens was to achieve socio-economic structural changes to our society. I joined because I believed their slogans of “clean politics” and “alternative voice” which Greens held high at all their rallies, meetings and forums. Sadly, within a few years, I discovered the true nature of this party.
Many other genuine progressive activists who joined the Greens for the same reason I did, soon came to the same conclusion:
The party was saying something and practicing the opposite.
The party that was calling for the abolishment of mandatory detention system, has in reality no commitment towards the suffering of refugees. Up until 2004, ALL Greens politicians admitted to me they never met any asylum seeker who had come by boat. They never visited detention centres. Basically the Greens were commenting on high-profile matters without even having a clear understanding of the issue. All they knew was that by commenting on such matters they would get more media coverage and gain more votes.
During rallies and elections forums they voiced their opposition to Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet up until 2005 they did not have an official policy on the matter. I was actually shocked when Senator Kerry Nettle admitted to me after her win in 2001 that she never heard about Palestine and knew nothing about the issue. She asked me to provide her with literature about the conflict to educate her and her staff about it.
On school funding the Greens official policy is to fund only public schools, however they quickly came to the defence and rather loudly demanded that the government continue the funding of a private Islamic extremist school. At the end of the day the Greens basically endorsed wasting our public money on private schools.
The Greens never had a policy on Multiculturalism prior to me working with them. After much pressure from my side the policy was adopted around 2005. But the Greens hierarchy refused to honour this policy and did not implement any item on its agenda. Until now, the non-English speaking representation in key positions is close to Nil.
My time with the Greens was very disappointing and disheartening by the end. It was actually a bit of a shock to discover that while the official talk was to work in achieving socio-economic changes, the reality instead was “how to win more votes”. There was at no time any real evaluation of what was or could have been achieved.
The Greens repeated attempts to make deals with the right-wing Liberal party controlled by neo-liberal elements was the final straw for me and in 2006 I resigned.
So much for all the talk on “clean politics” and being a progressive party!
Here we have a party that embraces and encourages democracy whilst at the same time makes deals with a right-wing government in order to suffocate that same democracy by changing the senate voting system.
The Greens are also negotiating intensively with the conservative Liberal party to swap preference. This will enable the current government to stay in power for another term and allow the same conservative agenda of attacking our Medicare, tertiary education, Welfare system and humanitarian intake.
“Actions speak louder than words” is the perfect quote for the Greens party.
The Greens have made a lot of noise on “clean politics”, “socio-economic changes”, “refugees rights”, “public money for public services” and “progressive politics”.
But in reality, the actions and achievements are completely the opposite.
In order to stay in power, they would rather see Tony Abbott as PM.
They also wish to see a continuation of “boat people” suffering, more cuts to our public education and health. All this for one reason: the Greens survive on the failures of others.
The Greens have never achieved any progressive change in our society even after years of been part of the government.
The Greens Don Quixotic approach wants to hide their failure in achieving any real progressive change by hiding behind more rhetoric. The attack on Anthony Albanese is a clear example. The Greens want to silence and get rid of one of the most progressive Labor politicians.
The Greens party is a power thirsty party with no commitment to any noble goal. This is why after 40 years in political life; they achieved very little. And this is why I left the Greens.
I cannot endorse voting for Labor, on moral grounds. But definitely, I want to see that Albanese stays in parliament fighting for socio-economic changes that his Greens opponents never fought for.
Sunday, May 08, 2016
Our government’s “war on radicalisation”: reality vs joke!!!
In the last two years (yes, only 2), our authorities declared war on “radicalisation and extremism”, or at least that’s what they wanted us to think.
What we’ve seen so far is lots of noise threatening to crack down on extremists and making a few arrests. Also more than $1 billion of extra funding has been given to security agencies and community programs but so far the only results we can see is that extremism has increased while civil liberties have been taken away from people who are fighting the very extremists the government says it’s fighting!
After two years our government and authorities should prove to us that they are serious in tackling terrorism by showing us beyond doubt what they have achieved so far.
Well, I can easily claim beyond doubt that our government was never serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation. This is very clear since there has been no degree of de-radicalisation.
A few arrests here and there of a few teenagers allegedly plotting some kind of terrorist activities is not what I call a result. Meanwhile extremism among some parts of the community is very high and extremist centres are still allowed to continue preaching hatred.
I need some answers to convince me that authorities are serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation. Below are some of my observations:
- Security agencies were actively engaging and consulting extremist who were at the very source of radicalisation (Muslim leaders and organisations), and totally ignoring the real anti-extremist in the community.
- Funding for community programs aimed to reduce radicalisation was granted mainly to extremist organisations. Instead organisations that had a solid track in fighting extremism were never successful in securing such funds. For example, our organisation known to be in the frontline of the fight against extremism since 2008, was refused $25,000 in funding.
Organisations such as LMA are instead granted millions of dollars every year when in reality they have been the very cause of extremism.
Proof of this is the revelation that the latest teenager who was plotting the next terror attack was actually in a de-radicalisation program.
- In Australia we have 4 Muftis (all of them have limited representation among Muslims), the authorities chose to recognise and promote the most extremist of all. The authorities were in fact sidelining the other more moderate ones.
- Authorities were actively sabotaging anti-terrorism initiatives related to Syria, while allowing so far around 400 Australian extremist to travel and fight in Syria alongside ISIS and other terrorist organisations.
We need to know how our authorities are failing so miserably in the fight against extremism. How is it possible that great numbers of extremists were able to leave Australia to join terror groups overseas while anti extremist activist who wanted to travel on peace missions were stopped. I for one was even banned from entering Lebanon thanks to forged documents sent by Australian authorities,
- The arrest and deportation of a known peace activists (NZ citizen Warren Marriner, as a clear example) while outrageously allowing free movement of extremists between Australia and Syria (authorities admitted that 60 Australian terrorists had returned to Australia after fighting in Syria).
What I mentioned above are not allegations or theories. They are facts and we are working on documenting them.
But even without these facts anyone can easily see that Australia has a big problem with high radicalisation and extremism.
All the facts outlined below are evidence that our authorities are not serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation:
- The constant interception of youth trying to travel to Syria to join terrorist.
- The incessant reports of radical violence in schools.
- The repeat attacks on anti-extremism campaigners.
- The ongoing fundraising events to support terrorist organisations.
- The re-appearance of radical groups such as Al Risalah bookstore for example.
With all the facts I have outlined, we can only come to one sad conclusion: our authorities are on the side of the extremists!
We cannot expect our levels of radicalisation and extremism to come down unless the following measures are taken:
1. Closing down dozen of mosques and religious centres run by extremist.
2. Start consultation with the real anti extremist members of the community and halt all talks with known extremist community/religious leaders.
3. Stop the funding from Gulf countries (mostly Saudi Arabia) to Australian Islamic schools and religious centres.
If these measures are not taken soon, the government and the security agencies will lose the trust of the Australian people.
We can send a strong message to our government with the upcoming elections.
“You will not get our votes until you act on radicalisation and restore public faith in our security agencies.”
What we’ve seen so far is lots of noise threatening to crack down on extremists and making a few arrests. Also more than $1 billion of extra funding has been given to security agencies and community programs but so far the only results we can see is that extremism has increased while civil liberties have been taken away from people who are fighting the very extremists the government says it’s fighting!
After two years our government and authorities should prove to us that they are serious in tackling terrorism by showing us beyond doubt what they have achieved so far.
Well, I can easily claim beyond doubt that our government was never serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation. This is very clear since there has been no degree of de-radicalisation.
A few arrests here and there of a few teenagers allegedly plotting some kind of terrorist activities is not what I call a result. Meanwhile extremism among some parts of the community is very high and extremist centres are still allowed to continue preaching hatred.
I need some answers to convince me that authorities are serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation. Below are some of my observations:
- Security agencies were actively engaging and consulting extremist who were at the very source of radicalisation (Muslim leaders and organisations), and totally ignoring the real anti-extremist in the community.
- Funding for community programs aimed to reduce radicalisation was granted mainly to extremist organisations. Instead organisations that had a solid track in fighting extremism were never successful in securing such funds. For example, our organisation known to be in the frontline of the fight against extremism since 2008, was refused $25,000 in funding.
Organisations such as LMA are instead granted millions of dollars every year when in reality they have been the very cause of extremism.
Proof of this is the revelation that the latest teenager who was plotting the next terror attack was actually in a de-radicalisation program.
- In Australia we have 4 Muftis (all of them have limited representation among Muslims), the authorities chose to recognise and promote the most extremist of all. The authorities were in fact sidelining the other more moderate ones.
- Authorities were actively sabotaging anti-terrorism initiatives related to Syria, while allowing so far around 400 Australian extremist to travel and fight in Syria alongside ISIS and other terrorist organisations.
We need to know how our authorities are failing so miserably in the fight against extremism. How is it possible that great numbers of extremists were able to leave Australia to join terror groups overseas while anti extremist activist who wanted to travel on peace missions were stopped. I for one was even banned from entering Lebanon thanks to forged documents sent by Australian authorities,
- The arrest and deportation of a known peace activists (NZ citizen Warren Marriner, as a clear example) while outrageously allowing free movement of extremists between Australia and Syria (authorities admitted that 60 Australian terrorists had returned to Australia after fighting in Syria).
What I mentioned above are not allegations or theories. They are facts and we are working on documenting them.
But even without these facts anyone can easily see that Australia has a big problem with high radicalisation and extremism.
All the facts outlined below are evidence that our authorities are not serious in fighting extremism and radicalisation:
- The constant interception of youth trying to travel to Syria to join terrorist.
- The incessant reports of radical violence in schools.
- The repeat attacks on anti-extremism campaigners.
- The ongoing fundraising events to support terrorist organisations.
- The re-appearance of radical groups such as Al Risalah bookstore for example.
With all the facts I have outlined, we can only come to one sad conclusion: our authorities are on the side of the extremists!
We cannot expect our levels of radicalisation and extremism to come down unless the following measures are taken:
1. Closing down dozen of mosques and religious centres run by extremist.
2. Start consultation with the real anti extremist members of the community and halt all talks with known extremist community/religious leaders.
3. Stop the funding from Gulf countries (mostly Saudi Arabia) to Australian Islamic schools and religious centres.
If these measures are not taken soon, the government and the security agencies will lose the trust of the Australian people.
We can send a strong message to our government with the upcoming elections.
“You will not get our votes until you act on radicalisation and restore public faith in our security agencies.”
Friday, May 06, 2016
Why AFP refused my FOI application...!!!
The AFP refusal to release a document they provided to the Australian embassy in Lebanon on 4 November 2015 about an AFP investigation which lead to my ban from entering Lebanon, raises very serious questions:
1- Why has the AFP chosen to convey this document to Lebanon only?
If I’m allegedly under investigation for serious matters, why did the AFP not notify other agencies such Interpol and asked other countries to refuse my entry? If I am too “dangerous” to enter Lebanon, would I not be “dangerous” entering Jordan or Egypt?
2- Why did the AFP let me leave Australia knowing very well that I would be stopped in Lebanon? Clearly my travel documents stated where I was going. If AFP already knew about the ban initiated by their agency, why make me go through the great effort in travelling all the way to that country to just get refused? This little petty game played by AFP caused me extensive financial losses.
3- I have never been subject to any AFP investigation. AFP is merely lying...
4- Was it an AFP initiative to provide false information to the Lebanese authorities or the request came from higher? Was AFP pressured by elements in our government? Could it be they acted upon request of some politicians who have been embarrassed by my work on radicalisation and Syrian crisis?
5- Why is the media deadly silent on this gross abuse of power by AFP who is targeting a respected member of society only because of his political view?
We will start a public campaign on “political targeting” using police state powers. We will make this an issue of public interest during this election’s campaign. In the meantime we are getting legal advice in Australia and we are also waiting on a deliberation from the Lebanese Supreme Court to release the document.
I contacted my local MP Jason Clare, who declined to help. I also contacted the PM office and the office of Craig Lundy, MP for Reid. All declined to meet me and help clarify this issue. I understand this is a result of their political views in support of the Syrian “revolution” that is in odd with my views on this “revolution”. Again this will be highlighted in our campaign in the next federal election. We will ask voters to vote away from these politicians who conspire with foreign powers against respected member of their local community.
I am deeply disappointed that the dozens of journalists who worked with me and my group for the last few years on the issues of radicalisation are now hesitant to cooperate with me on these highly important issues.
I am in the process of assessing our level of cooperation with these journalists in the future, especially now that we are expecting good news from Syria. This news will enable us to lead a major project in Syria that will have a great public impact in Australia. In light of the above, we are assessing and will decide which media outlet will get the right to cover our upcoming project.
1- Why has the AFP chosen to convey this document to Lebanon only?
If I’m allegedly under investigation for serious matters, why did the AFP not notify other agencies such Interpol and asked other countries to refuse my entry? If I am too “dangerous” to enter Lebanon, would I not be “dangerous” entering Jordan or Egypt?
2- Why did the AFP let me leave Australia knowing very well that I would be stopped in Lebanon? Clearly my travel documents stated where I was going. If AFP already knew about the ban initiated by their agency, why make me go through the great effort in travelling all the way to that country to just get refused? This little petty game played by AFP caused me extensive financial losses.
3- I have never been subject to any AFP investigation. AFP is merely lying...
4- Was it an AFP initiative to provide false information to the Lebanese authorities or the request came from higher? Was AFP pressured by elements in our government? Could it be they acted upon request of some politicians who have been embarrassed by my work on radicalisation and Syrian crisis?
5- Why is the media deadly silent on this gross abuse of power by AFP who is targeting a respected member of society only because of his political view?
We will start a public campaign on “political targeting” using police state powers. We will make this an issue of public interest during this election’s campaign. In the meantime we are getting legal advice in Australia and we are also waiting on a deliberation from the Lebanese Supreme Court to release the document.
I contacted my local MP Jason Clare, who declined to help. I also contacted the PM office and the office of Craig Lundy, MP for Reid. All declined to meet me and help clarify this issue. I understand this is a result of their political views in support of the Syrian “revolution” that is in odd with my views on this “revolution”. Again this will be highlighted in our campaign in the next federal election. We will ask voters to vote away from these politicians who conspire with foreign powers against respected member of their local community.
I am deeply disappointed that the dozens of journalists who worked with me and my group for the last few years on the issues of radicalisation are now hesitant to cooperate with me on these highly important issues.
I am in the process of assessing our level of cooperation with these journalists in the future, especially now that we are expecting good news from Syria. This news will enable us to lead a major project in Syria that will have a great public impact in Australia. In light of the above, we are assessing and will decide which media outlet will get the right to cover our upcoming project.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Whatever the reason, I will not vote for Jason Clare: No to extremism..!!
Jason Clare, Labor MP for Blaxland (where I reside) didn’t get my vote in the last election and definitely won’t be getting my vote in the next.
The reason why I didn’t vote for him in the last election was due to his poor record on many social issues.
The reason why I won’t support him in the upcoming election is his total support for radical elements in our community.
Mr Clare is the Labor MP of Blaxland, a federal seat that has the largest number of Muslims in Australia and one of the largest numbers of migrants born in Non-English speaking countries. The seat, which includes the suburb of Bankstown, witnessed the highest level of sectarian violence in the country. This violence was perpetrated by a group of Muslim extremist towards other sects that didn’t follow their same “ideology”. The people targeted by these violent individuals were other Muslims who either belonged to different sects (Shites and Alawi) or just secular Muslims.
Mr Clare’s response to these violent and vicious attacks was silence!
Not only was he silent, he even refused to meet with some of the victims of these attacks. I know this because one of those victims was me!
I was physically assaulted in the heart of Bankstown and just metres away from MP Clare’s office. Before that, I had already received hundreds of death threats and I had been verbally assaulted many times.
Another victim, Mr Ali El Ali, was shot on 4 February 2012 at his house in front of his wife and children. Mr El Ali lived in Punchbowl which belongs also to the division of Blaxland.
Mr Isawi was tortured by local extremist in his shop. He was beaten and threatened to be killed if he didn’t sell up and leave.
Without the support from local authorities he gave in to the extortion and lost his shop.
In August 2012 I sent an email explaining to Mr Clare what my family was going through after receiving hundreds of death threats. These threats included the kidnapping and rape of my children.
I’m a political campaigner and community leader and I’ve always been very vocal in fighting extremism in our society. This has never gone down well with the local extremists and for this reason I was physically assaulted.
Since I never got an answer to my email I decided to phone the office. I explained to a staff member the situation and that I wished to see him as the situation was critical. The staff member was rather rude and not willing to help stating “Mr Clare is a very busy man and can’t meet you”.
The staff member did, however, give me the number of the local police (sigh).
To date Mr Clare has not bothered to meet any of the victims of Muslims radicals. If this wasn’t bad enough, he hasn’t even taken the time to at least condemn these violent acts on his constituents. Many of these victims were forced to close down their business and move away from Bankstown.
Not even when I was assaulted on national TV in May 2013 he didn’t seem to deem this particular incident worth of condemnation.
The voice of ordinary Muslims who were victims of violent attacks perpetrated by Muslim radicals are apparently not worthy of Mr Clare’s time.
On 1st October last year, Ms Maha Abdo who happens to be a Muslim extremist, had apparently received an angry phone call from someone telling her to “love Australia or leave”. Imagine my surprise when all of a sudden Mr Clare spoke out about this disgraceful phone call inside the parliament. He even issued a media release and mentioned this also on his website.
Apparently for Mr Clare shooting someone or threatening to kidnap and rape children is not a serious matter, however a harmful phone call gets blown out of proportion. And this is when in dirty politics it all comes down to votes! There is no other logical explanation for such blatant disparities within the same constituency.
Mr Clare not only supports extremism and radicalisation but his silence has encouraged local extremist to continue their radical activities of brainwashing, recruiting, attacking opponents and fundraising. And this is the main reason why I will not vote for Labor candidate in Blaxland in the next election.
Not only I will not vote for this politician who supported and still supports radicalisation in our society. I, and other concerned members of our community, will mount a campaign to see voters put him last on their ballot paper.
I will not vote for Mr Clare for two reasons:
1) I do not support extremism.
2) all Australians should be equal
In the next election, we will work very hard to see Blaxland become a marginal seat. Mr Clare needs to remember how we nearly achieved this in 2010.
We helped to achieve a drop in Labor’s primaries to 50%, increased the informal vote by 15%. 10% of voters boycotted altogether. Blaxland had the highest informal vote in the country where 25% of voters didn’t vote for any candidate.
Mr Clare needs to represent all members in his seat equally. He needs to withdraw support to extremist groups and organisations and highlight instead the dangers of radicalisation among our community.
If Mr Clare thinks he can gain votes by supporting such groups then he needs to know that according to NSW state election results, these extremists have no support among voting residents.
Mr Clare needs to apologise to all victims of extremism and stop listening to the likes of extremist organisations such as the Lebanese Moslem Association which have greatly contributed to the spread of extremism in our society.
#Vote_Jason_Clare_Last in Blaxland
The reason why I didn’t vote for him in the last election was due to his poor record on many social issues.
The reason why I won’t support him in the upcoming election is his total support for radical elements in our community.
Mr Clare is the Labor MP of Blaxland, a federal seat that has the largest number of Muslims in Australia and one of the largest numbers of migrants born in Non-English speaking countries. The seat, which includes the suburb of Bankstown, witnessed the highest level of sectarian violence in the country. This violence was perpetrated by a group of Muslim extremist towards other sects that didn’t follow their same “ideology”. The people targeted by these violent individuals were other Muslims who either belonged to different sects (Shites and Alawi) or just secular Muslims.
Mr Clare’s response to these violent and vicious attacks was silence!
Not only was he silent, he even refused to meet with some of the victims of these attacks. I know this because one of those victims was me!
I was physically assaulted in the heart of Bankstown and just metres away from MP Clare’s office. Before that, I had already received hundreds of death threats and I had been verbally assaulted many times.
Another victim, Mr Ali El Ali, was shot on 4 February 2012 at his house in front of his wife and children. Mr El Ali lived in Punchbowl which belongs also to the division of Blaxland.
Mr Isawi was tortured by local extremist in his shop. He was beaten and threatened to be killed if he didn’t sell up and leave.
Without the support from local authorities he gave in to the extortion and lost his shop.
In August 2012 I sent an email explaining to Mr Clare what my family was going through after receiving hundreds of death threats. These threats included the kidnapping and rape of my children.
I’m a political campaigner and community leader and I’ve always been very vocal in fighting extremism in our society. This has never gone down well with the local extremists and for this reason I was physically assaulted.
Since I never got an answer to my email I decided to phone the office. I explained to a staff member the situation and that I wished to see him as the situation was critical. The staff member was rather rude and not willing to help stating “Mr Clare is a very busy man and can’t meet you”.
The staff member did, however, give me the number of the local police (sigh).
To date Mr Clare has not bothered to meet any of the victims of Muslims radicals. If this wasn’t bad enough, he hasn’t even taken the time to at least condemn these violent acts on his constituents. Many of these victims were forced to close down their business and move away from Bankstown.
Not even when I was assaulted on national TV in May 2013 he didn’t seem to deem this particular incident worth of condemnation.
The voice of ordinary Muslims who were victims of violent attacks perpetrated by Muslim radicals are apparently not worthy of Mr Clare’s time.
On 1st October last year, Ms Maha Abdo who happens to be a Muslim extremist, had apparently received an angry phone call from someone telling her to “love Australia or leave”. Imagine my surprise when all of a sudden Mr Clare spoke out about this disgraceful phone call inside the parliament. He even issued a media release and mentioned this also on his website.
Apparently for Mr Clare shooting someone or threatening to kidnap and rape children is not a serious matter, however a harmful phone call gets blown out of proportion. And this is when in dirty politics it all comes down to votes! There is no other logical explanation for such blatant disparities within the same constituency.
Mr Clare not only supports extremism and radicalisation but his silence has encouraged local extremist to continue their radical activities of brainwashing, recruiting, attacking opponents and fundraising. And this is the main reason why I will not vote for Labor candidate in Blaxland in the next election.
Not only I will not vote for this politician who supported and still supports radicalisation in our society. I, and other concerned members of our community, will mount a campaign to see voters put him last on their ballot paper.
I will not vote for Mr Clare for two reasons:
1) I do not support extremism.
2) all Australians should be equal
In the next election, we will work very hard to see Blaxland become a marginal seat. Mr Clare needs to remember how we nearly achieved this in 2010.
We helped to achieve a drop in Labor’s primaries to 50%, increased the informal vote by 15%. 10% of voters boycotted altogether. Blaxland had the highest informal vote in the country where 25% of voters didn’t vote for any candidate.
Mr Clare needs to represent all members in his seat equally. He needs to withdraw support to extremist groups and organisations and highlight instead the dangers of radicalisation among our community.
If Mr Clare thinks he can gain votes by supporting such groups then he needs to know that according to NSW state election results, these extremists have no support among voting residents.
Mr Clare needs to apologise to all victims of extremism and stop listening to the likes of extremist organisations such as the Lebanese Moslem Association which have greatly contributed to the spread of extremism in our society.
#Vote_Jason_Clare_Last in Blaxland
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
The Greens conspire with Liberals to suffocate democracy
And once again The Greens betray another of their “principles”.
Now they have gone even further: conspiring with the ultra conservative Liberal government to give up our “unsophisticated” democracy by introducing so-called “senate voting reforms”.
Let us admit firstly that we do have a somewhat rather ancient democratic voting system.
This regressive primitive voting system allowed the two parties, for more than a century, to continue governing this nation with little opposition.
The system allowed at one stage the survival of a 3rd party when convenient. “For decoration purposes”, these were the exact words used by a Labor heavyweight.
The voting system in need of an urgent fix is the house of representatives and not the senate. If you examine any senate since the federation, you will find some representation of small parties or independents. The house of representatives on the other hand, has always less representation of small parties or independents.
The few “independents” who managed to win seats, were only able to do so, by being at first candidates from a major party then later defecting to declare independence.
The parliament system is extremely undemocratic as it lacks a proportional representation. To win any given seat, a candidate needs 50% +1. This is extremely hard.
On the other hand to win a seat in electoral area in a proportional system, a candidate will need smaller quota. Eg. If the electoral area consists of 4 seats, the candidate will need less than 20% of the votes.
Another issue which needs to be addressed is the representation of minorities and marginalised communities. In our parliaments, more than 95% of politicians are White Anglo-Saxons. The representation of Indigenous, Non-English Speaking and people with disabilities is almost NIL, comparing to the actual numbers of these marginalised communities.
The Greens which have become only recently a relevant party, have been studying ways to obstruct any smaller parties for their political advantage.
The Greens party were well aware of the fact that the only reason they rose to relevancy was thanks to the disintegration of the Democrats party. Without the current system (which they want to abolish), The Greens would never have had the chance to beat the Democrats.
The first Greens politician to win a seat was Bob Brown in 1996. He won merely on preferences. He got in with just around 6% of the votes (the quota is 14.5%).
The same happened with Kerry Nettle. She won her senate seat in 2001 on less than 4.5% (quota is 14.5%), despite the fact that the candidate for the Democrats got more primary votes than her.
The Greens deeply regressive Bob Brown, started to study ways to sabotage small parties in order to prevent any scenario similar to what happened to the Democrats by the hands of the Greens.
In order to achieve this, they demanded the tightening of regulations needed to register a political party. The only state where their demands were met was in NSW. The Greens conspired with regressive Labor’s Bob Carr and the Liberals and made it very difficult to register a state party.
According to this legislation, a party should register 1 year before the election. The party needs to have at least 700 members (when in fact a party needs only 500 members to be registered as federal party and a few members to be registered in all other states).
Conniving with the Liberals is now the other legacy of the Greens in their bid to suffocate small parties to change the senate voting system and make it impossible for smaller parties to swap preference and win a seat.
In the last elections, Glenn Druery was crucified by The Greens after they lost some seats due to Motor Enthusiasts party winning less than 0.6% in the primaries.
Let us discuss the philosophy of Glenn and see if it is evil or progressive.
A decade ago, more than 80% of Australians would vote for either one of the 2 major parties.
More than 95% of Australians will choose one of the candidates of the 3 established parties (Labor-Liberal/National-Democrats and then Labor-Liberals/National-Greens).
In the last election this percentage was significantly reduced. See below parcentages:
Total votes for the candidates of the three established parties: 67%
Informal votes: 3%
Absentees: 8%
The above numbers are worrying for the “gang-of-three major parties”.
This is the reason why the Greens, who are more vulnerable to any loss of votes, are so desperate to suffocate any small parties competing with the Greens for the limited numbers of available votes.
Let us go back to Glenn’s philosophy. Glenn noticed the large numbers of unhappy voters (dissatisfied from the gang-of-three). This dissatisfaction is translated in the large numbers of new small and micro political parties registered to run any the last 2 elections (around 47 parties and the list is still open to be increased till the next election).
Glenn also noted that despite the fact that most of these parties will get less than 1% of the primary vote, if added up it could reach 25% of primaries. So he ingeniously invented a method to add up all these small percentages to win a seat in each state.
In conclusion, Glenn did not cheat the system. He did not deceive anyone. And he did not use any illegal methods.
In any election, the small primaries won by micro parties will be swallowed at early stage of counting the votes by one of the three established parties. So dissatisfied voters will still be dissatisfied because their protest votes ended up in the party they wished to punish in the first place.
The genius method of Glenn saw the “dissatisfied” votes add up to win a seat for a party outside the “mafia”.
This is why the Greens are unhappy. The Greens want the dissatisfied voters to hit their heads on the nearest brick wall. Contrary to all facts and data, The Greens still want to continue to claim that they represent dissatisfied voters.
The Greens should pay dearly for this undemocratic conniving with one of the worst conservative governments in Australian contemporary history. Such scheme could see the Liberals winning both houses and this could mean the end of “fair go” Australia we all know.
Now they have gone even further: conspiring with the ultra conservative Liberal government to give up our “unsophisticated” democracy by introducing so-called “senate voting reforms”.
Let us admit firstly that we do have a somewhat rather ancient democratic voting system.
This regressive primitive voting system allowed the two parties, for more than a century, to continue governing this nation with little opposition.
The system allowed at one stage the survival of a 3rd party when convenient. “For decoration purposes”, these were the exact words used by a Labor heavyweight.
The voting system in need of an urgent fix is the house of representatives and not the senate. If you examine any senate since the federation, you will find some representation of small parties or independents. The house of representatives on the other hand, has always less representation of small parties or independents.
The few “independents” who managed to win seats, were only able to do so, by being at first candidates from a major party then later defecting to declare independence.
The parliament system is extremely undemocratic as it lacks a proportional representation. To win any given seat, a candidate needs 50% +1. This is extremely hard.
On the other hand to win a seat in electoral area in a proportional system, a candidate will need smaller quota. Eg. If the electoral area consists of 4 seats, the candidate will need less than 20% of the votes.
Another issue which needs to be addressed is the representation of minorities and marginalised communities. In our parliaments, more than 95% of politicians are White Anglo-Saxons. The representation of Indigenous, Non-English Speaking and people with disabilities is almost NIL, comparing to the actual numbers of these marginalised communities.
The Greens which have become only recently a relevant party, have been studying ways to obstruct any smaller parties for their political advantage.
The Greens party were well aware of the fact that the only reason they rose to relevancy was thanks to the disintegration of the Democrats party. Without the current system (which they want to abolish), The Greens would never have had the chance to beat the Democrats.
The first Greens politician to win a seat was Bob Brown in 1996. He won merely on preferences. He got in with just around 6% of the votes (the quota is 14.5%).
The same happened with Kerry Nettle. She won her senate seat in 2001 on less than 4.5% (quota is 14.5%), despite the fact that the candidate for the Democrats got more primary votes than her.
The Greens deeply regressive Bob Brown, started to study ways to sabotage small parties in order to prevent any scenario similar to what happened to the Democrats by the hands of the Greens.
In order to achieve this, they demanded the tightening of regulations needed to register a political party. The only state where their demands were met was in NSW. The Greens conspired with regressive Labor’s Bob Carr and the Liberals and made it very difficult to register a state party.
According to this legislation, a party should register 1 year before the election. The party needs to have at least 700 members (when in fact a party needs only 500 members to be registered as federal party and a few members to be registered in all other states).
Conniving with the Liberals is now the other legacy of the Greens in their bid to suffocate small parties to change the senate voting system and make it impossible for smaller parties to swap preference and win a seat.
In the last elections, Glenn Druery was crucified by The Greens after they lost some seats due to Motor Enthusiasts party winning less than 0.6% in the primaries.
Let us discuss the philosophy of Glenn and see if it is evil or progressive.
A decade ago, more than 80% of Australians would vote for either one of the 2 major parties.
More than 95% of Australians will choose one of the candidates of the 3 established parties (Labor-Liberal/National-Democrats and then Labor-Liberals/National-Greens).
In the last election this percentage was significantly reduced. See below parcentages:
Total votes for the candidates of the three established parties: 67%
Informal votes: 3%
Absentees: 8%
The above numbers are worrying for the “gang-of-three major parties”.
This is the reason why the Greens, who are more vulnerable to any loss of votes, are so desperate to suffocate any small parties competing with the Greens for the limited numbers of available votes.
Let us go back to Glenn’s philosophy. Glenn noticed the large numbers of unhappy voters (dissatisfied from the gang-of-three). This dissatisfaction is translated in the large numbers of new small and micro political parties registered to run any the last 2 elections (around 47 parties and the list is still open to be increased till the next election).
Glenn also noted that despite the fact that most of these parties will get less than 1% of the primary vote, if added up it could reach 25% of primaries. So he ingeniously invented a method to add up all these small percentages to win a seat in each state.
In conclusion, Glenn did not cheat the system. He did not deceive anyone. And he did not use any illegal methods.
In any election, the small primaries won by micro parties will be swallowed at early stage of counting the votes by one of the three established parties. So dissatisfied voters will still be dissatisfied because their protest votes ended up in the party they wished to punish in the first place.
The genius method of Glenn saw the “dissatisfied” votes add up to win a seat for a party outside the “mafia”.
This is why the Greens are unhappy. The Greens want the dissatisfied voters to hit their heads on the nearest brick wall. Contrary to all facts and data, The Greens still want to continue to claim that they represent dissatisfied voters.
The Greens should pay dearly for this undemocratic conniving with one of the worst conservative governments in Australian contemporary history. Such scheme could see the Liberals winning both houses and this could mean the end of “fair go” Australia we all know.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Why organise International Tours of Peace to Syria?
Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, active groups, who oppose the violence in Syria, started to organise solidarity visits to the country. There are many reasons for organising such visits but the number one reasons was to send a message of solidarity to Syrians and their legitimate government.
These tours also enable activists, media representatives and intellectuals to find out what is really happening in Syria first hand and not through the mainstream media fabrications.
I had the honour to participate in one of these visits in late 2013. It was a great experience that gave me a lot of ideas and information about the situation and the needs of the Syrians who chose to stay in the country.
Up until now mostly the same groups and same people visit Syria. This is mainly due to connections to that country. We wanted to do more.
We wanted our tours to be “Responsible Tourism”. This is when we decided to start our International Tours of Peace to Syria where:
• Anyone can participate.
• Each participant will finance his/her stay in Syria. This will generate greater economic benefits for the local people.
• The tour will provide more enjoyable experiences for the participants through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
• Visits will become more frequent allowing more people from diverse background to participate. This will have greater impact and generate better media coverage.
In our first International Peace Tour to Syria all participants (except one) were first time travellers to Syria.
Every participant paid their own way and enjoyed the Syrian hospitality. So much that a few have already booked for the next tour and others have expressed their desire to go back again as soon as their finances will allow them.
Our tour got good coverage on Facebook and mainstream media in different countries including Syria, Norway and Australia.
The first tour has allowed us to come up with more ideas, including our project of sending volunteers to Syria. We will announce the details soon.
The management for this project is very flexible always consulting with others on almost every aspect of the organisation. Openness and transparency are the keys to achieve our goals. It is for this reason that all the participants were very happy with our tour, even if it was our “test run” tour.
The participants had minimal interference by Syrian authorities while exploring the reality of the situation. Participants moved freely among the market stalls, talked freely with ordinary Syrians and freely took photos/videos everywhere they went. We changed our itinerary several times and were able to accommodate the wishes of the participants.
We expect the 2nd tour to be even better!
We promise many unbelievable surprises. What surprises? Come and find out!
www.socialjustice.net.au/syria-tours or info@socialjustice.net.au
These tours also enable activists, media representatives and intellectuals to find out what is really happening in Syria first hand and not through the mainstream media fabrications.
I had the honour to participate in one of these visits in late 2013. It was a great experience that gave me a lot of ideas and information about the situation and the needs of the Syrians who chose to stay in the country.
Up until now mostly the same groups and same people visit Syria. This is mainly due to connections to that country. We wanted to do more.
We wanted our tours to be “Responsible Tourism”. This is when we decided to start our International Tours of Peace to Syria where:
• Anyone can participate.
• Each participant will finance his/her stay in Syria. This will generate greater economic benefits for the local people.
• The tour will provide more enjoyable experiences for the participants through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
• Visits will become more frequent allowing more people from diverse background to participate. This will have greater impact and generate better media coverage.
In our first International Peace Tour to Syria all participants (except one) were first time travellers to Syria.
Every participant paid their own way and enjoyed the Syrian hospitality. So much that a few have already booked for the next tour and others have expressed their desire to go back again as soon as their finances will allow them.
Our tour got good coverage on Facebook and mainstream media in different countries including Syria, Norway and Australia.
The first tour has allowed us to come up with more ideas, including our project of sending volunteers to Syria. We will announce the details soon.
The management for this project is very flexible always consulting with others on almost every aspect of the organisation. Openness and transparency are the keys to achieve our goals. It is for this reason that all the participants were very happy with our tour, even if it was our “test run” tour.
The participants had minimal interference by Syrian authorities while exploring the reality of the situation. Participants moved freely among the market stalls, talked freely with ordinary Syrians and freely took photos/videos everywhere they went. We changed our itinerary several times and were able to accommodate the wishes of the participants.
We expect the 2nd tour to be even better!
We promise many unbelievable surprises. What surprises? Come and find out!
www.socialjustice.net.au/syria-tours or info@socialjustice.net.au
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Open letter to ABC: I do not want my share of commonwealth to be wasted on brainwashing and recruiting terrorists
Your report today at 12 midday news is no more than a propaganda piece to help Al Qaeda terrorists. I have watched the report with much disgust and disbelieve.
1- You did not mention why the Syrian army and Hezbullah fighters are blockading the town of Madaya. You did not tell the viewers that Madya is controlled by terrorists of Ahrar Al sham, an organisation affiliated with Al Qaeda terrorist organisation.
2- You mentioned that there were 28 deaths because of hunger, without giving viewers one name of these victims. It cannot be believed that whoever counted the numbers of dead people does not have one name of a victim, unless the whole issue is mere lie.
3- You showed for more than 2 minutes the suffering of Madaya, but failed to show the suffering of Fouaa and Kafraya, currently besieged by terrorists in the northern parts of Syria. We cannot believe that ABC is concerned about the lives s of terrorists (and their families), but has no concern about the lives of of totally innocent people in Kafrya, being besieged only because they are Shia.
4- ABC had showed comments from terrorists, supporters of terrorists and US representative in UN about what is happening in Madaya, but you failed to seek or quote any comment from the other side. Al Manar TV, for example, had produced professional and well-documented series that refute all lies by terrorists and their supporters that were circulated freely on your network for the last few days.
5- I can provide your network of well-documented reports that all previous aid sent to Madaya was stolen by terrorist leaders and were either given to terrorists or sold for people who can afford.
6- Your network did not mention that the whole talks about Madaya town are coincided with the current peace talks that will be held in Vienna about the crisis in that country. You failed to notice that the lies about what is happening in Madaya could be a propaganda tool to pressure the Syrian government and its supporters in these negotiations.
It is deeply disappointing that your network had come to aid well-known terrorist organisation. Can you tell us how many Australians will decide to go and fight in Syria to help terrorists after watching your continuous false reporting on this issue?
I do not want my share of commonwealth to be wasted on brainwashing and recruiting terrorists. And I will communicate my wish to Australian government.
1- You did not mention why the Syrian army and Hezbullah fighters are blockading the town of Madaya. You did not tell the viewers that Madya is controlled by terrorists of Ahrar Al sham, an organisation affiliated with Al Qaeda terrorist organisation.
2- You mentioned that there were 28 deaths because of hunger, without giving viewers one name of these victims. It cannot be believed that whoever counted the numbers of dead people does not have one name of a victim, unless the whole issue is mere lie.
3- You showed for more than 2 minutes the suffering of Madaya, but failed to show the suffering of Fouaa and Kafraya, currently besieged by terrorists in the northern parts of Syria. We cannot believe that ABC is concerned about the lives s of terrorists (and their families), but has no concern about the lives of of totally innocent people in Kafrya, being besieged only because they are Shia.
4- ABC had showed comments from terrorists, supporters of terrorists and US representative in UN about what is happening in Madaya, but you failed to seek or quote any comment from the other side. Al Manar TV, for example, had produced professional and well-documented series that refute all lies by terrorists and their supporters that were circulated freely on your network for the last few days.
5- I can provide your network of well-documented reports that all previous aid sent to Madaya was stolen by terrorist leaders and were either given to terrorists or sold for people who can afford.
6- Your network did not mention that the whole talks about Madaya town are coincided with the current peace talks that will be held in Vienna about the crisis in that country. You failed to notice that the lies about what is happening in Madaya could be a propaganda tool to pressure the Syrian government and its supporters in these negotiations.
It is deeply disappointing that your network had come to aid well-known terrorist organisation. Can you tell us how many Australians will decide to go and fight in Syria to help terrorists after watching your continuous false reporting on this issue?
I do not want my share of commonwealth to be wasted on brainwashing and recruiting terrorists. And I will communicate my wish to Australian government.
Open letter to our PM: why is your government targeting peace missions to Syria?
Dear Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, PM of Australia
This is the second time I am writing to you to complain against unjustified actions of Australian authorities against me in regards to my activities in promoting peace in Syria.
First of all I would like to remind you that I was the first active member in our community to publicly condemn extremists’ actions in Australia (and elsewhere around the world including in Syria). I was the strongest anti-extremist voice in the community for the last 5 years. In doing this, I risked my life and the lives of my family members. I received countless death threats, verbal attacks and physical attacks on at least 3 occasions.
My long standing fight against extremism and violence that related to sectarian and religious division is well on record and cannot be disputed by anyone in this country.
Last October en route to lead a peace delegation in Syria, I was subjected to an unjustified humiliating treatment on the hands of our Border Force. To date, I have not received any logical explanation from your office or from the office of the minister for justice on how the ABF got the absurd idea that I was suspected of wanting to join terrorists groups in Syria.
This despite my countless appearances on the local media voicing my strong opposition to any kind of religious and sectarian violence and hate.
Last week, I was denied entry to Lebanon to attend an international conference on the Right of Return for Palestinian people. While I was not given any reason behind this denial of entry, I got a clear picture about the real reasons. During my communications with the Lebanese officials, I was told that the only reason behind the Lebanese authorities' decision was an official request from your government to deny me entry to that country.
I understand that your government is unhappy of our “International Peace Tours to Syria” project. Despite the fact that the project is no more than organising visit of foreign nationals to Syria to form a clearer picture of what is happening in that country.
I am aware of the risks that one can encounter in Syria, however the participants are adults and can make up their own mind at their own risk.
By doing this, they are not violating any law in any Western democracies.
This was very clear as none of them was questioned upon their return to their homelands. Australia was the only country that punished their nationals and residents who participated in the initiative.
I’m requesting with this letter to know the reason behind your governments bid to sabotage our initiative. Why is your government so angry and is so desperately trying to obstruct in every way our peace missions to Syria? We are going there to show solidarity to the Syrian people.
Would your continuous obstruction to our initiative be related to the fact that you have vowed to make the issue of Syria an issue of public interest? The kind of interest that would affect voting in the next elections?
Relating to your government’s actions against our group and initiatives, we are very close to declare our intension to run campaigns in the next election to cost your party some seats in some marginal areas. Our early discussions included marginal seats of Reid and Barton.
Meantime, we are working at many levels to abort your government’s bid to sabotage our project. We are working with both Syrian and Lebanese authorities to solve the problems of denying me entry to that country. But we hope that your government will realise its mistake in this regard.
I will contact the Lebanese authorities to correct the record by requesting them to remove the veto on my entry to Lebanon.
I would also like to mention my surprise to your government’s stance on Syria which recently has put you at odds with the rest of the world. Even the strongest opponents of the Syrian government have now changed their rhetoric.
During my last visit to Damascus, Syrian officials told me that representatives from many Western countries had met with them asking for their cooperation in the fight against terrorism. These talks will help these nations prevent imminent terrorist attacks in their homeland.
Other talks were more financial regarding the rebuilding of Syria. These countries want to secure building contracts. Such contracts could run into billions of dollars.
We hope that your government will put the interests of the Australian people ahead of your party’s interests.
Thank you and I really hope that common sense will prevail within your cabinet.
This letter was sent to PM on 18 December 2015... No response was received...
This is the second time I am writing to you to complain against unjustified actions of Australian authorities against me in regards to my activities in promoting peace in Syria.
First of all I would like to remind you that I was the first active member in our community to publicly condemn extremists’ actions in Australia (and elsewhere around the world including in Syria). I was the strongest anti-extremist voice in the community for the last 5 years. In doing this, I risked my life and the lives of my family members. I received countless death threats, verbal attacks and physical attacks on at least 3 occasions.
My long standing fight against extremism and violence that related to sectarian and religious division is well on record and cannot be disputed by anyone in this country.
Last October en route to lead a peace delegation in Syria, I was subjected to an unjustified humiliating treatment on the hands of our Border Force. To date, I have not received any logical explanation from your office or from the office of the minister for justice on how the ABF got the absurd idea that I was suspected of wanting to join terrorists groups in Syria.
This despite my countless appearances on the local media voicing my strong opposition to any kind of religious and sectarian violence and hate.
Last week, I was denied entry to Lebanon to attend an international conference on the Right of Return for Palestinian people. While I was not given any reason behind this denial of entry, I got a clear picture about the real reasons. During my communications with the Lebanese officials, I was told that the only reason behind the Lebanese authorities' decision was an official request from your government to deny me entry to that country.
I understand that your government is unhappy of our “International Peace Tours to Syria” project. Despite the fact that the project is no more than organising visit of foreign nationals to Syria to form a clearer picture of what is happening in that country.
I am aware of the risks that one can encounter in Syria, however the participants are adults and can make up their own mind at their own risk.
By doing this, they are not violating any law in any Western democracies.
This was very clear as none of them was questioned upon their return to their homelands. Australia was the only country that punished their nationals and residents who participated in the initiative.
I’m requesting with this letter to know the reason behind your governments bid to sabotage our initiative. Why is your government so angry and is so desperately trying to obstruct in every way our peace missions to Syria? We are going there to show solidarity to the Syrian people.
Would your continuous obstruction to our initiative be related to the fact that you have vowed to make the issue of Syria an issue of public interest? The kind of interest that would affect voting in the next elections?
Relating to your government’s actions against our group and initiatives, we are very close to declare our intension to run campaigns in the next election to cost your party some seats in some marginal areas. Our early discussions included marginal seats of Reid and Barton.
Meantime, we are working at many levels to abort your government’s bid to sabotage our project. We are working with both Syrian and Lebanese authorities to solve the problems of denying me entry to that country. But we hope that your government will realise its mistake in this regard.
I will contact the Lebanese authorities to correct the record by requesting them to remove the veto on my entry to Lebanon.
I would also like to mention my surprise to your government’s stance on Syria which recently has put you at odds with the rest of the world. Even the strongest opponents of the Syrian government have now changed their rhetoric.
During my last visit to Damascus, Syrian officials told me that representatives from many Western countries had met with them asking for their cooperation in the fight against terrorism. These talks will help these nations prevent imminent terrorist attacks in their homeland.
Other talks were more financial regarding the rebuilding of Syria. These countries want to secure building contracts. Such contracts could run into billions of dollars.
We hope that your government will put the interests of the Australian people ahead of your party’s interests.
Thank you and I really hope that common sense will prevail within your cabinet.
This letter was sent to PM on 18 December 2015... No response was received...
Monday, November 23, 2015
Australian Muslim Party: a dangerous step to silence moderate Muslims
Suddenly and without any warnings or consultations, sections of the Muslim community have officially announced they will establish a political party to represent Muslims in this country.
This group made up of both conservative and extreme elements have set out to silence any moderate progressive voice within the community by hijacking the name “Muslim”.
In the last decade, these extremist elements have been deceiving the Australian public, the politicians and the media thanks to continuous flowing of funds from Saudi Arabia.
What all this funding has achieved is a growing number of radicalised Muslims never seen before in this country.
Saudi money has enabled them to build major religious centres, radio station, newspapers and YouTube base TV stations. All these information sources have served and continue to serve as major vehicles to brainwash and radicalise.
This group has gained a lot of influence in the media and in politics. Surprisingly since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, all the major political parties and the Greens sided with them and supported terrorism in Syria.
The support from the two major political parties didn’t come as a surprise since we know too well that both the Labor and Liberal parties take directives from the US. What we didn’t expect was the support given both by Greens and sections of the socialists.
Sadly this would not have been possible without the impact made by Saudi funding.
Unfortunately the voices of other sections in the Muslim community (secular Muslims, moderate Sunni, Shia, Alawis, Sufis...) have been so far ignored and their voices remain silent.
Now, conservative and extreme sections of the Muslim community aim to totally hijack the Muslim representation in this country by declaring that the newly established political party will represent Muslims. By doing so, these extreme sections aim to maximise their influence in politics and media.
We will not allow this!
Our goal will be to expose the real agenda of this party. We will expose the conservative nature of their “leadership” and we will campaign to de-legitimise any claim that it represents Muslims of this country.
These so called “devout” Muslims who want to establish this party forgot to inform us about the important issues.
What we need to know is the following:
• Which Islam do they follow and seek to promote. Wahhabi, Secular, Ashaari, Sufi, Shia, Alawi....?
• Which organisations, individuals and groups did they consult before making this big announcement?
• How will they deal with religious divisions and tensions between different groups and sects?
• What is their stance on issues important to Muslim communities: on Syria, Yemen, Egypt..?
• Depending on which Islam they follow: what is their official stance on issues like Jihad, Caliphate, Sharia Law and relations with non-Muslims.
• Why the secrecy on consultations and intention to establish party?
• How do they finance themselves?
For a political party to claim representation of a certain group (Muslims), the officials must be honest and transparent in order to gain support from all the parties interested. So far we know nothing about this party.
So far, the officials are very secretive with their plans. They are trying to keep their agendas totally hidden. They have lacked consultation with important organisations and individuals. Yet they seek to convince you and me that they will be representing all Muslims.
Their disdain towards other Muslim minorities was made very clear in June 2013 when they invited Mr George Galloway to Australia to hold a speech.
This group had a formal contract which they broke off as soon as they found out that Mr Galloway was invited to speak at another venue organised by Shia Muslims.
Thankfully the second group was able to take over the organising of the tour and was able to turn it into a great success.
In conclusion, this group of conservative and extremist elements want to register a political party to silence all moderate and non-Sunnis Muslims in this country.
For this reason they will fail and we will make them fail!
This group made up of both conservative and extreme elements have set out to silence any moderate progressive voice within the community by hijacking the name “Muslim”.
In the last decade, these extremist elements have been deceiving the Australian public, the politicians and the media thanks to continuous flowing of funds from Saudi Arabia.
What all this funding has achieved is a growing number of radicalised Muslims never seen before in this country.
Saudi money has enabled them to build major religious centres, radio station, newspapers and YouTube base TV stations. All these information sources have served and continue to serve as major vehicles to brainwash and radicalise.
This group has gained a lot of influence in the media and in politics. Surprisingly since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, all the major political parties and the Greens sided with them and supported terrorism in Syria.
The support from the two major political parties didn’t come as a surprise since we know too well that both the Labor and Liberal parties take directives from the US. What we didn’t expect was the support given both by Greens and sections of the socialists.
Sadly this would not have been possible without the impact made by Saudi funding.
Unfortunately the voices of other sections in the Muslim community (secular Muslims, moderate Sunni, Shia, Alawis, Sufis...) have been so far ignored and their voices remain silent.
Now, conservative and extreme sections of the Muslim community aim to totally hijack the Muslim representation in this country by declaring that the newly established political party will represent Muslims. By doing so, these extreme sections aim to maximise their influence in politics and media.
We will not allow this!
Our goal will be to expose the real agenda of this party. We will expose the conservative nature of their “leadership” and we will campaign to de-legitimise any claim that it represents Muslims of this country.
These so called “devout” Muslims who want to establish this party forgot to inform us about the important issues.
What we need to know is the following:
• Which Islam do they follow and seek to promote. Wahhabi, Secular, Ashaari, Sufi, Shia, Alawi....?
• Which organisations, individuals and groups did they consult before making this big announcement?
• How will they deal with religious divisions and tensions between different groups and sects?
• What is their stance on issues important to Muslim communities: on Syria, Yemen, Egypt..?
• Depending on which Islam they follow: what is their official stance on issues like Jihad, Caliphate, Sharia Law and relations with non-Muslims.
• Why the secrecy on consultations and intention to establish party?
• How do they finance themselves?
For a political party to claim representation of a certain group (Muslims), the officials must be honest and transparent in order to gain support from all the parties interested. So far we know nothing about this party.
So far, the officials are very secretive with their plans. They are trying to keep their agendas totally hidden. They have lacked consultation with important organisations and individuals. Yet they seek to convince you and me that they will be representing all Muslims.
Their disdain towards other Muslim minorities was made very clear in June 2013 when they invited Mr George Galloway to Australia to hold a speech.
This group had a formal contract which they broke off as soon as they found out that Mr Galloway was invited to speak at another venue organised by Shia Muslims.
Thankfully the second group was able to take over the organising of the tour and was able to turn it into a great success.
In conclusion, this group of conservative and extremist elements want to register a political party to silence all moderate and non-Sunnis Muslims in this country.
For this reason they will fail and we will make them fail!
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Paris mass-shootings: Did Australian authorities get the message..?!!!
The mass shootings in Paris, including several suicide bombings, are the last wake-up call for our politicians, authorities and media. If they wish to avoid similar mass shootings on Australian soil, they should start changing their policies, attitude and planning.
So far, our authorities have no plan on how to prevent similar attacks. We believe that it is just a matter of luck and geographical isolation that saved Australia from similar devastating and carnage. The authorities so far have demonstrated a lack of sensitivity and understanding and have not yet come up with a workable plan to de-radicalise our youth.
After returning from the Middle East recently, I felt the difference between Australia and the countries I visited.
Australian authorities, politicians and media are still in the mind frame that de-radicalisation will happen just by using rhetoric. The government thinks that talks about radicalisation and the need for harmony in the society is enough to prevent radicals from committing horrendous crimes. They think that de-radicalisation could be achieved by convincing “extremist leaders” to abandon their radical plans and brainwashing.
Well after the Paris mass shooting they should come to terms that this was just a mere dream and that a different approach is needed.
The government should learn from Paris mass shootings: consulting extremist “leaders” will lead us nowhere. Our politicians and media should come to terms with the facts that giving extremist “leaders” awards such as “Father of the Year”, “Sister of the year” or “Stupid of the year” will not help convince the thousands of already brainwashed youths to abandon their extremist ideology. This ideology has already been imprinted in their minds.
It is time for the government to start listening and cooperating with the organisations, leaders and groups who have been warning of the dangers in supporting the Syrian “revolution”. It was exactly the support of this fake revolution that has brought about the current situation of radicalisation and global terrorism.
The government went about it the wrong way from the beginning, starting in early 2012 when the Syrian embassy in Canberra was attacked. Still getting it wrong and sending the wrong message by deporting Warren Marriner a peace activist who has been all along a strong voice against extremism.
Such actions have been the catalyst all along for the high radicalisation in our society.
The government’s complete silence during the sectarian tensions and at the same time their fully support to extremist “leaders” has basically let these “hate preachers” roam free to radicalise , recruit and brainwash thousands into going overseas to fight for terrorist groups. It is thanks to these policies (or lack of) we have over 400 people who have fought or are still fighting in Syria, Iraq and maybe even in Libya and Yemen.
French authorities also tackled the problem in the same way, taking rather the “soft” approach of consulting and open dialogue with the extremist “leaders”, thinking that this would be enough. They thought that their policies were enough to positively de-radicalise these hardened terrorist coming back home after fighting with some of the most vicious terror groups in the world
Both French and Australian authorities were somewhat naive to believe that these radicals would, once back home, give up their dream of establishing a Caliphate.
The Paris mass shooting should now convince the Australian government that their plan is not working and is bound to fail just like in France.
We need to convince our government that our approach should be as follows
• Shutting down their financial network by cutting off funds coming from Saudi Arabia. These millions of dollars are poured into Mosques and Islamic schools and serve to radicalise Australian Muslims.
• Government should be consulting only with community leaders who have helped and who are still helping integration. A true leadership is to advance the mutual interests of a peaceful, secular and democratic society.
• The government needs to make tough decisions shutting down centres of hate even if this creates discontent among a small group of people. The majority of our society will appreciate these decisions and even if politically this would cost some votes, the rewards and the outcome would outweigh these small losses.
• Preachers who spread hate should be either silenced or deported. It is unacceptable that known extremist organisations are still able to operate in our suburbs. It is even more unacceptable that these organisations are still allowed to organise conferences and invite from overseas (mostly Saudi Arabia) preachers who are famous for radicalising and spreading hatred.
In conclusion, our government needs to stop targeting peace activists like Warren Marriner and should start targeting the people who are the cause of extremism. The individuals who are spreading hatred and extremism in Australian are well known to authorities, despite the fact that our media still likes to portray them as “messiahs of anti-extremism”
It’s all rather simple. What we need to do in order to prevent a Paris-like carnage is for our government to accept that their support for the Syrian “revolution” was the biggest mistake and has been the cause of all radicalisation.
So far, our authorities have no plan on how to prevent similar attacks. We believe that it is just a matter of luck and geographical isolation that saved Australia from similar devastating and carnage. The authorities so far have demonstrated a lack of sensitivity and understanding and have not yet come up with a workable plan to de-radicalise our youth.
After returning from the Middle East recently, I felt the difference between Australia and the countries I visited.
Australian authorities, politicians and media are still in the mind frame that de-radicalisation will happen just by using rhetoric. The government thinks that talks about radicalisation and the need for harmony in the society is enough to prevent radicals from committing horrendous crimes. They think that de-radicalisation could be achieved by convincing “extremist leaders” to abandon their radical plans and brainwashing.
Well after the Paris mass shooting they should come to terms that this was just a mere dream and that a different approach is needed.
The government should learn from Paris mass shootings: consulting extremist “leaders” will lead us nowhere. Our politicians and media should come to terms with the facts that giving extremist “leaders” awards such as “Father of the Year”, “Sister of the year” or “Stupid of the year” will not help convince the thousands of already brainwashed youths to abandon their extremist ideology. This ideology has already been imprinted in their minds.
It is time for the government to start listening and cooperating with the organisations, leaders and groups who have been warning of the dangers in supporting the Syrian “revolution”. It was exactly the support of this fake revolution that has brought about the current situation of radicalisation and global terrorism.
The government went about it the wrong way from the beginning, starting in early 2012 when the Syrian embassy in Canberra was attacked. Still getting it wrong and sending the wrong message by deporting Warren Marriner a peace activist who has been all along a strong voice against extremism.
Such actions have been the catalyst all along for the high radicalisation in our society.
The government’s complete silence during the sectarian tensions and at the same time their fully support to extremist “leaders” has basically let these “hate preachers” roam free to radicalise , recruit and brainwash thousands into going overseas to fight for terrorist groups. It is thanks to these policies (or lack of) we have over 400 people who have fought or are still fighting in Syria, Iraq and maybe even in Libya and Yemen.
French authorities also tackled the problem in the same way, taking rather the “soft” approach of consulting and open dialogue with the extremist “leaders”, thinking that this would be enough. They thought that their policies were enough to positively de-radicalise these hardened terrorist coming back home after fighting with some of the most vicious terror groups in the world
Both French and Australian authorities were somewhat naive to believe that these radicals would, once back home, give up their dream of establishing a Caliphate.
The Paris mass shooting should now convince the Australian government that their plan is not working and is bound to fail just like in France.
We need to convince our government that our approach should be as follows
• Shutting down their financial network by cutting off funds coming from Saudi Arabia. These millions of dollars are poured into Mosques and Islamic schools and serve to radicalise Australian Muslims.
• Government should be consulting only with community leaders who have helped and who are still helping integration. A true leadership is to advance the mutual interests of a peaceful, secular and democratic society.
• The government needs to make tough decisions shutting down centres of hate even if this creates discontent among a small group of people. The majority of our society will appreciate these decisions and even if politically this would cost some votes, the rewards and the outcome would outweigh these small losses.
• Preachers who spread hate should be either silenced or deported. It is unacceptable that known extremist organisations are still able to operate in our suburbs. It is even more unacceptable that these organisations are still allowed to organise conferences and invite from overseas (mostly Saudi Arabia) preachers who are famous for radicalising and spreading hatred.
In conclusion, our government needs to stop targeting peace activists like Warren Marriner and should start targeting the people who are the cause of extremism. The individuals who are spreading hatred and extremism in Australian are well known to authorities, despite the fact that our media still likes to portray them as “messiahs of anti-extremism”
It’s all rather simple. What we need to do in order to prevent a Paris-like carnage is for our government to accept that their support for the Syrian “revolution” was the biggest mistake and has been the cause of all radicalisation.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Australian authorities target opponents for political reasons
As the president and founder of Social Justice Network, the official organizer of the International Tours of Peace to Syria, I would like to express my deep disappointment in the way the authorities mistreated participants of the tour.
All of us at Social Justice Network cannot find any logical explanation for the interception and intense investigation I was subjected on my way to Syria and back.
I am a well known anti-extremism activist and community leader. I have received countless (and still do) death threats. I have been physically attacked and verbally abused by extremists. Despite this I was held by Australian Border Force for hours at Melbourne and Sydney airports.
Until now I don’t know why I was investigated. I am a well known anti-extremist activist. I have already visited Syria twice before. I had declared months in advance about my intention to visit Syria in October. I even went to the extent to communicate to the antiterrorism agencies about my movements. The ABF investigation was baseless and had no aim but to send the wrong message in all directions.
The ABF provided no legal basis for the interception and investigation. There is nothing in the anti-terrorism legislation that gives security agencies the authority to intercept and try to humiliate citizens for no reason. I was given no reason as to way I was held so many hours at the airport.
Australia Border Force claim they did not recognize me and had no knowledge about the tour which sounds more like a bid to cover up their farce. So I ask, if the ABF had no knowledge of our tour, what is the reason they intercepted again all the participants on the way back again. And why and for what reason the ABF investigated the participants in the first place?
It is also strange that the ABF illegal and unnecessary actions towards SJN, did not attract any attention from the Australian media despite getting huge NZ media coverage after the harsh treatment of Mr Warren Marriner.
It is obvious these actions were politically motivated.
When we combine the intense investigation of the participants with the arrest and deportation of NZ peace activist Warren Marriner, we can comfortably reach the conclusion that our authorities were actually targeting our anti-extremists initiative.
Australian authorities should be condemned by all means for targeting peace-activists. Such move only sends the wrong message that in fact Australia supports extremists in Australia and in Syria.
In a delicate time when Australia faces the most serious challenge from terrorists, such message could have a devastated effect.
I want to reassure the public that the illegal regressive actions carried out by the authorities will not deter us. SJN will continue its commitment to speak out and fight against extremism and terrorism.
All of us at Social Justice Network cannot find any logical explanation for the interception and intense investigation I was subjected on my way to Syria and back.
I am a well known anti-extremism activist and community leader. I have received countless (and still do) death threats. I have been physically attacked and verbally abused by extremists. Despite this I was held by Australian Border Force for hours at Melbourne and Sydney airports.
Until now I don’t know why I was investigated. I am a well known anti-extremist activist. I have already visited Syria twice before. I had declared months in advance about my intention to visit Syria in October. I even went to the extent to communicate to the antiterrorism agencies about my movements. The ABF investigation was baseless and had no aim but to send the wrong message in all directions.
The ABF provided no legal basis for the interception and investigation. There is nothing in the anti-terrorism legislation that gives security agencies the authority to intercept and try to humiliate citizens for no reason. I was given no reason as to way I was held so many hours at the airport.
Australia Border Force claim they did not recognize me and had no knowledge about the tour which sounds more like a bid to cover up their farce. So I ask, if the ABF had no knowledge of our tour, what is the reason they intercepted again all the participants on the way back again. And why and for what reason the ABF investigated the participants in the first place?
It is also strange that the ABF illegal and unnecessary actions towards SJN, did not attract any attention from the Australian media despite getting huge NZ media coverage after the harsh treatment of Mr Warren Marriner.
It is obvious these actions were politically motivated.
When we combine the intense investigation of the participants with the arrest and deportation of NZ peace activist Warren Marriner, we can comfortably reach the conclusion that our authorities were actually targeting our anti-extremists initiative.
Australian authorities should be condemned by all means for targeting peace-activists. Such move only sends the wrong message that in fact Australia supports extremists in Australia and in Syria.
In a delicate time when Australia faces the most serious challenge from terrorists, such message could have a devastated effect.
I want to reassure the public that the illegal regressive actions carried out by the authorities will not deter us. SJN will continue its commitment to speak out and fight against extremism and terrorism.
Sunday, November 08, 2015
Only in Australia: when authorities suspected I am ISIS member
For more than one year, we were announcing that we intend to start sending “Tours of peace” to Syria. We did not hide any fact. We were very open about our plans. And we published all available and needed information, except the dates of the first tour, for security reasons.
And despite the fact that I am well-known anti-extremist activist, who appeared on many media outlets for the last 4 years criticizing the so-called Syrian revolution and its supporters.
All this did not save me from being intercepted by Australian Border Force at Melbourne airport on 26 October.
An agent of ABF looked at me, asked me (among hundreds of travelers) for my passport. And checked the departure declaration. I fit the criteria for “ISIS supporter”: Middle Eastern appearance, Arabic name and travelling to Beirut.
The agent was very serious and bit angry. Then asked me to follow him to interrogation room.
“Where are you travelling to?”
“Lebanon”
“and then?
“To Syria”.
That was enough to shock him. How dare I was to declare that I am going to Syria.
He asked me to get everything from my pocket. He also asked me how much money I have. He did not believe that I have only about $2000.
He had no clue about our “tours”. He did not have any clue about my background. He did not have any clue about my political commitments.
I started to be annoyed.
“It seems that you do not watch TV. It seems that you have no clue what is happening in the communities. It is very clear that you have no coordination with ASIO, Anti-terrorism squad and AFP”.
He was angry that I did not declare in the departure declaration that I am bounding to Syria. Despite the fact that the question on the declaration is “country where you will get off this flight”, which is Lebanon in my case.
At that time I thought that the reason behind this farce could be one of two possibilities.
It is either that our authorities are trying to stop terrorism by “prejudice”: if you look like off Middle Eastern appearance, your name is not Western and you are bound to one of the Middle Eastern countries” you are suspect. No intelligence gathering and no data needed or available.
So if I changed my name to John Howard, bought a ticket to Malaysia or even Germany and changed the colour of my hair to blonde, I would escape the radar.
The other possibility is that our authorities are siding with extremists and trying to sabotage our initiative. After the arrest of the tour’s hero and peace activist Warren Marrienr, I am now convinced that the second possibility is the logical reason.
Our authorities who facilitated travel of Australian terrorists to fight in Syria for years (including convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf who left the country despite the fact that his passport was cancelled for years), are very angry that we organised tour of peace to Syria. Instead of thanking us for organising initiative that promotes peace and reconciliation, our participants were targeted, detained and deported (in the case of Warren Marriner).
I am on my way home to Australia. I am alert that authorities will act silly and maybe irresponsible. Hence I am taking all precautions.
I am declaring how much money I have. I am also declaring the products of animals. And I am expecting intense interrogation. But the vital question still remains in my mind: Why authorities are targeting the wrong people.
Even if we support president Assad and his government, we never heard that Syrian government or Syrian army constitute any threat on our national security. We have no information that we are breaking any Australian law. And we are not promoting any violence. On the contrary. I want to see violence in Syria and around the world ends yesterday.
It is very clear that our authorities had lost any logic or common sense. It is very clear that our authorities have no plan on how to protect our national security from the real threats. And it seems that our authorities are determined to crack down on freedom of speech and turn our country into police state.
We will resist this by all peaceful means available. This includes fighting against the regressive troika (Labor, Liberals and Greens) in the next election.
One fact stands: we are coming back Syria: to help and to promote peace and reconciliation.
And despite the fact that I am well-known anti-extremist activist, who appeared on many media outlets for the last 4 years criticizing the so-called Syrian revolution and its supporters.
All this did not save me from being intercepted by Australian Border Force at Melbourne airport on 26 October.
An agent of ABF looked at me, asked me (among hundreds of travelers) for my passport. And checked the departure declaration. I fit the criteria for “ISIS supporter”: Middle Eastern appearance, Arabic name and travelling to Beirut.
The agent was very serious and bit angry. Then asked me to follow him to interrogation room.
“Where are you travelling to?”
“Lebanon”
“and then?
“To Syria”.
That was enough to shock him. How dare I was to declare that I am going to Syria.
He asked me to get everything from my pocket. He also asked me how much money I have. He did not believe that I have only about $2000.
He had no clue about our “tours”. He did not have any clue about my background. He did not have any clue about my political commitments.
I started to be annoyed.
“It seems that you do not watch TV. It seems that you have no clue what is happening in the communities. It is very clear that you have no coordination with ASIO, Anti-terrorism squad and AFP”.
He was angry that I did not declare in the departure declaration that I am bounding to Syria. Despite the fact that the question on the declaration is “country where you will get off this flight”, which is Lebanon in my case.
At that time I thought that the reason behind this farce could be one of two possibilities.
It is either that our authorities are trying to stop terrorism by “prejudice”: if you look like off Middle Eastern appearance, your name is not Western and you are bound to one of the Middle Eastern countries” you are suspect. No intelligence gathering and no data needed or available.
So if I changed my name to John Howard, bought a ticket to Malaysia or even Germany and changed the colour of my hair to blonde, I would escape the radar.
The other possibility is that our authorities are siding with extremists and trying to sabotage our initiative. After the arrest of the tour’s hero and peace activist Warren Marrienr, I am now convinced that the second possibility is the logical reason.
Our authorities who facilitated travel of Australian terrorists to fight in Syria for years (including convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf who left the country despite the fact that his passport was cancelled for years), are very angry that we organised tour of peace to Syria. Instead of thanking us for organising initiative that promotes peace and reconciliation, our participants were targeted, detained and deported (in the case of Warren Marriner).
I am on my way home to Australia. I am alert that authorities will act silly and maybe irresponsible. Hence I am taking all precautions.
I am declaring how much money I have. I am also declaring the products of animals. And I am expecting intense interrogation. But the vital question still remains in my mind: Why authorities are targeting the wrong people.
Even if we support president Assad and his government, we never heard that Syrian government or Syrian army constitute any threat on our national security. We have no information that we are breaking any Australian law. And we are not promoting any violence. On the contrary. I want to see violence in Syria and around the world ends yesterday.
It is very clear that our authorities had lost any logic or common sense. It is very clear that our authorities have no plan on how to protect our national security from the real threats. And it seems that our authorities are determined to crack down on freedom of speech and turn our country into police state.
We will resist this by all peaceful means available. This includes fighting against the regressive troika (Labor, Liberals and Greens) in the next election.
One fact stands: we are coming back Syria: to help and to promote peace and reconciliation.
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