Australia's Leading Sheik says: Women who don't stay at home and wear a Hijab cause Rape

An overwhelming majority of people believe Australia's most senior Muslim leader should be kicked out of the country after blaming women who don't wear Islamic headdress for being preyed on by men.

Eight-four per cent of respondents to a poll on The Daily Telegraph's website today say Sydney-based Sheik al-Taj al-Din al-Hilaly should be deported for a speech in which he likened women to abandoned "meat'' that attracts voracious animals.

More than 682 people have voted in the poll so far.

In a Ramadan sermon the sheik also alluded to the infamous Sydney gang rapes, suggesting the attackers were not entirely to blame.

While not specifically referring to the rapes, brutal attacks on four women for which a group of young Lebanese men received long jail sentences, Sheik Hilaly said there were women who "sway suggestively" and wore make-up and immodest dress "and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years."

"But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he asked.
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The leader of the 2000 rapes in Sydney's southwest, Bilal Skaf, a Muslim, was initially sentenced to 55 years' jail, but later had the sentence reduced on appeal.

In the religious address about adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilaly said: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat?

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

The sheik then said: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

He said women were "weapons" used by "Satan" to control men.

"It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa)."

Today a former member of the federal government's Muslim Advisory board, Iktimal Hage-Ali, said she had listened to a recording of the speech and believed the sheik should be stripped of his position.

"I was just flabbergasted,'' she told ABC radio.

Treasurer Peter Costello branded the sheik's comments as "totally unacceptable''.

Mr Costello said comparing women to uncovered meat invites people to treat them in a degrading and dehumanising way.

He said the leaders of Catholic and the Anglican churches in Australia would never make such a comment.

"This is totally unacceptable. This is comparing women to uncovered meat,'' Mr Costello told the Seven Network.

"We really need political leaders to speak out against it.

"But I hope that the moderate Muslim leaders will speak out today and condemn these comments.
"Make it clear to Muslims that this is not the view of Islam and that they will really take some kind of action to disassociate themselves from the comments which Sheik Alhilali has made.

"And take some action to try and pull him into line.''

Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said the Mufti should be sacked and deported.

Ms Goward said the sheik had a history of making such comments and many would feel Australia's tolerance had been abused.

"It is incitement to a crime. Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man ... their leader in court,'' she told the Nine Network.

"It's time we stopped just saying he should apologise. It is time the Islamic community did more then say they were horrified. I think it is time he left.

"I repeat, I think it was time he was asked to go and I would encourage the authorities to consider whether a man who incites young Muslim men to crime, because that is essentially what he has done, should be allowed to stay,'' she said.

But Keysar Trad, the mufti's associate, said the sheik had been talking about abstinence, fidelity and dress codes but not rape.

"He wasn't talking about the hijab. He was talking about people who engage in extramarital sex,'' Mr Trad told ABC radio.

"He's always encouraged fidelity and abstinence until people get married.

"He's talking about those people who prey on others - whether men or women - who seek to engage in sexual conduct outside of marriage and do so through alluring types of attire.''

Asked to verify that the sheik had referred to women who don't wear the hijab as "uncovered meat'', Mr Trad said: "From my discussions with him, the issue was not whether they wear a hijab or don't wear a hijab.

"The issue is that every society has a certain dress code, a normal dress code that people go by. So if somebody goes beyond that dress code, if men or women get to the stage where they dress in a manner that is provocative then these people are doing something wrong.

"He was not talking about rape.''

BB: This way to Your departing Flight Sir.....

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