Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has announced that he has instructed his department to draft legislation to proscribe the non-violent Islamic political party, Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, as a terrorist organisation.
Hizb ut-Tahrir (translated as the Party of Liberation) is a non-violent Islamic political party that calls for the liberation of Palestine and the return of the Islamic Khilafah (caliphate).
The push to ban the party in Australia by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke would join a list of several countries across the world that have banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, including the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Egypt and most other Arab countries.
The Australian government has decided to shut down organisations they deem as “Islamist” and far-right extremist, with a new regime for listing hate groups, similar to its current terror listing scheme that outlaws extremist groups like the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda.
Following the Bondi Beach attack on 14 December, which killed 15 people at a Hanukkah beach celebration, Australia’s federal government has been under increasing pressure to clamp down on groups that they deem as “hate organisations” or “antisemitic”.
Despite this, Hizb ut-Tahrir has no connection whatsoever with the Bondi Beach attack, but has long been a target for Islamophobic and pro-Israel voices around the world.
The Islamic party says efforts to proscribe it are part of wider Zionist demands to criminalise all pro-Palestinian activism and the government’s case rests on lies and racist, Islamophobic tropes that should be offensive to all people of conscience.
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Tony Burke on the ban
Speaking at a press conference earlier this week, Tony Burke said: “I have spoken before about my disgust for a very long time at organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Nationalist Socialist Network, otherwise known as the neo-Nazis.”
According to Burke, these organisations “have been able to take hate right to the threshold without using the words violence and escape any further terror listing.”
Burke also announced plans to introduce a new form of listing for groups that do not currently fall under or qualify as terrorist organisations, so that they can proscribe the groups they deem necessary.
“Their behaviour [Hizb ut-Tahrir and the National Socialists] needs to be unacceptable… unlawful… and enough so that we can proscribe the organisation and prohibit their activity in Australia.”
Tony Burke has acknowledged that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a non-violent party, but amid increasing pressure from pro-Zionist voices, especially in light of the aftermath of the Bondi Beach attack which targeted the Jewish community, many Zionist voices around the world have intensified their pressure on Australia.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General, Mike Burgess, claims that Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to establish a caliphate in Australia. This allegation has often been made by various governments within their respective countries in bids to ban the organisation, with Australia being no exception.
Burgess and Burke have both grouped Hizb ut-Tahrir and the neo-Nazis together under the banner that they are both extremist “hate organisations”, as well as “antisemitic.”
Hizb ut-Tahrir statement
Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia has heavily criticised the move to ban the party.
In a statement it said: “Before the victims of the Bondi tragedy could even be buried, pro-Zionist advocates in this country had already agreed on their narrative and rattled off their list of public demands. Investigations only just commenced, yet pro-Zionist advocates in this country, taking instruction from the war criminal Netanyahu, insist this entire episode can be explained solely through the lens of antisemitism.
“Pro-Zionist advocates went even further. The problem is not just any antisemitism, but a pernicious form of it apparently rooted in a ‘radical’ Islam. The extension of this false logic is to then apportion blame for Bondi not just upon the attackers, but the entire Muslim community as a natural grounding for this supposed ‘radicalism’. We are all suspect now unless we expressly disavow such ‘radicalism’, which to pro-Zionist advocates, is simply code for accepting the genocide and the right of the occupational entity to enact it.
“Like we saw with last summer’s fake ‘wave’ of antisemitic attacks, pro-Zionist advocates in this country are demanding Australia alter its political and legal frameworks to exceptionalise Zionist victimhood. The objective is to silence pro-Palestinian activism generally, and Ummah-centric activism specifically. The dream of Zionists is to kill off any resistance to it in both the East and the West.
“Efforts to ban protests, symbols and even slogans have already begun. The Prime Minister, under immense pressure from the Zionist entity and its underlings in this country, felt compelled to respond in some measure. In a manner the Muslim community has grown accustomed, the Prime Minister offered up the community as sacrificial lambs. References to ‘radical’ Islam, ‘radical’ preachers, hate speech and hate factories started to adorn his statements and releases…
“… Everything Hizb ut-Tahrir says or does is entirely legal in this country. But Zionists don’t like us, and have unsuccessfully lobbied state and federal governments for years to ban us, and now see in Bondi a unique opportunity to muzzle pro-Palestinian activism in the Muslim community…
“The plan to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia can only occur through the introduction of a two-tier legal system. The PM has alluded to it, and his Home Affairs Minister expressly said it, that despite there being no legal basis to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, Australia will now seek to create an entire new legal framework that expressly targets the Muslim community.”
