Australia Censors Free Speech Stalls Visa Application for Geert Wilders by Soeren Kern
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3358/australia-geert-wilders
A sympathizer for jihad is allowed into the country as part of the “normal” process for of British applicants, but an opponent of jihad — a man never convicted of a crime, and a member of the Dutch parliament — is blocked from coming.
Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP who frequently warns about the dangers of Islamic radicalism, has applied for a visa to visit and give speeches in Australia, but the application has stalled.
The official reason for the delay is that Wilders is on the Movement Alert List, a database of people of security concern to the Australian government. It means that his application is being held up at the Department of Immigration headquarters in Canberra while more thorough security checks are done.
But the real reason for the delay is that the high priests of Australian multiculturalism want to silence Wilders’ warnings about the tragic failure of multiculturalism in Europe.
Some Australian politicians have effectively admitted that the visa imbroglio is all about politics and has nothing to do with security.
According to Senator Richard Di Natale, a member of the far-left Greens Party, Wilders is not welcome in Australia.
“We don’t want to see Geert Wilders in this country. His views are not welcome here,” Di Natale told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “This country’s got a great story when it comes to multiculturalism, it’s part of my own personal story, it’s something we should all be proud of and here we’ve got a man who is the antithesis of multiculturalism.”
A recent study titled “Secret Saudi Funding of Radical Islamic Groups in Australia” found that Saudi Arabia is spending billions of dollars to promote radical Islam in the country, including through the construction of mosques, schools and Islamic cultural centers. A key Saudi objective is to prevent Muslim immigrants from integrating into Australian society in order to promote the establishment of a parallel Muslim society in the country.
As if to underscore the politically correct calculations delaying Wilders’ visa application, the governing Australian Labour Party swiftly approved a visa for Taji Mustafa, the British head of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group notorious for religious intolerance, disdain for Western values and sympathy for jihad.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she would not be revoking Mustafa’s visa and that Hizb ut-Tahrir was not on the government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.
Wilders had been planning to visit Sydney and Melbourne from October 12 to 21. Although he applied for a visa in late August, the Australian authorities have still not granted him a visa, and his supporters now fear he may be refused entry into the country.
His speaking tour of Australia is being organized by a group called the Q Society, a national grassroots organization dedicated to raising awareness about the rise of Islamic Sharia law in Australia.
Q Society Spokesman Andrew Horwood says the organization involves “ordinary Australians who are concerned about the march of Islam into this country. We are non-political, we are a secular organization, and we’ve seen what’s happened in Europe and we’re concerned about that. Our charter is to educate the Australian population about what Australia will be like in 20 or 30 years’ time with Islam if we choose not to understand it.”
The Q Society wants to know why Wilders’ staff and security detail had their visas approved within days, but Wilders’ application is still pending.
Says Horwood: “We find it very strange that a visa is taking so long to come from a politician of a respected democracy. It should be an automatic thing. He’s coming here to give the advantage of his knowledge, the advantage of what’s happening in Europe, and I cannot see why it’s not an automatic thing: ‘yes, you’re welcome here.’ I cannot understand why everything has just ground to a halt.”
If his visa is approved, Wilders will tell Australians that they will see the erosion of their cultural values, including freedom of speech, if they continue to follow multicultural policies that are allowing the Islamization of the country.
“Multiculturalism, I’m afraid, has been a disaster, but only because it is being used as a tool to promote Islam,” Wilders recently said.
Muslim immigration to Australia has skyrocketed over the past 15 years. According to the 2011 census, there were 476,300 Muslims in Australia, the most recent year for which government census data is available. This figure is a 375% jump from 1996, when there were just over 100,000 Muslims in the country.
The rapid increase in the Muslim population in Australia has been accompanied by many of the same social and security problems faced by Europe, where the rise of Islam is transforming the continent beyond recognition.
Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate that would be ruled by Islamic Sharia law. The group, which has an estimated one million members, is very active in efforts to promote the spread of Sharia law in Europe. Hizb ut-Tahrir is also strongly anti-Zionist and calls for Israel, which it calls an “illegal entity,” to be dismantled.
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s divisive leader, Taji Mustafa, was invited to Australia with open arms to address the group’s annual conference, which was held in the Bankstown district of Sydney on September 16. The official title of the conference was: “Muslims Rise: Caliphate Imminent.”
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been accused of inciting riots in Australia to protest the American-made anti-Islam YouTube film called Innocence of Muslims. The group’s Australian chapter on September 19 issued an eight-point statement in which it justified the “praiseworthy” actions of 400 anti-Western Muslim protesters who clashed with riot police in downtown Sydney on September 15.
“It is a clear illustration that the major issue with events in Sydney is not the violence, but the anti-Islamic agenda peddled by media and politicians,” the group said. “We encourage Muslims to continue in their noble work of resisting Western attacks, accounting the political establishment and media, and redoubling efforts to establish Islam and the Caliphate in the Muslim World.”
Police arrested and charged eight Muslim protesters with a range of offenses including assaulting police and resisting arrest. Several police officers were injured when a protester used the timber pole of a banner to hit them on the head as they were trying to protect the U.S. consulate from being stormed.
Australian political commentators have noted the sad irony: A sympathizer for jihad is allowed into the country as part of the “normal” process of British applicants, but an opponent of jihad — a man never convicted of a crime and a member of the Dutch parliament — is blocked from coming.
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
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