Australians assault Islamic protester

One man emerged from the crowd and punched him in the head; another in a passing car threw coffee all over him; angry words flew from passersby.

Yet the controversial Sheikh Haron stood his ground for three days outside the Downing Centre Courts, his white turban, tan robes and full beard shouting ‘Islam’ at the milling crowds. Heavy chains with padlocks draped over his body spoke of oppression and imprisonment. His coffee-stained sign read “Australians don’t want war”, a belief perhaps contradicted by the naked aggression directed at the lone protester.

This is the man, under the name of Man Haron Monis, now facing seven charges arising from letters he allegedly sent to the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Media reports claim the letters blamed the soldiers for the killing of innocent women and children. The Jewish News reported: “Felix Sher, the father of a Jewish soldier who was killed on duty in Afghanistan earlier this year, has received a hateful phone call and a number of letters calling his son a “pig” and a “murderer”.

The Australian and The Daily Telegraph both quote another line, allegedly from one of the letters: “I feel bad that you have lost your son but I don’t feel bad that a murderer of innocent civilians has lost his life.”

Sheikh Haron denies this interpretation: “The word ‘pig’ and other words that media have claimed are from completely different sentences, they have cut them and the incomplete quotes have been taken out of context.”

He says the letters were intended as a condolence to the families but also to raise concerns about wars he considers unjust.  He had published all the letters on his website.

It’s now difficult to judge the truth since the Australian Federal Police, who brought the charges against Sheikh Haron, had his website taken down and the letters are sub judice.

“I just believe in peace,” he said. “I don’t want Australians to be unsafe.”

He says both the Iraqi and Afghani invasions were unjust wars, and urges Australia to withdraw from Afghanistan and stop killing innocents in battles with militants.

“First, this is against God, spirituality and human rights,” he said.

“Second, the government does not understand the Afghan pride – we don’t want them to come and make revenge in Australia. These wars put Australians in danger.”

Asked if he thought the same about terrorist attacks which also killed innocent civilians, he said there was no difference:

“Regarding killing the innocent civilians with no justified reason I am of course against that and it does not make difference who does it, such an act should be condemned,” he said.

His lawyer, Chris Murphy, is reportedly said: “These letters don’t contain threats; he is a peace activist.”

But the Sheikh is also unpopular with many Australian Muslims and their chat sites have little to say in his favour. A typical comment on the muslim village site read: “The author of the Sheikh Haron site is obviously not a religious scholar, and has designed it to perpetrate a fraud and cast a cloud over the Muslim community.”

Sheikh Haron, from Campsie, says he was a cleric in his native Iran and the title “Sheikh’ is widely used by scholars and elders in the Muslim world. He said he obtained police permission for his three-day vigil on condition that he handed out no leaflets and displayed only the sign he held.

by Michael Gormly