Wednesday 27 July 2005

Catholics softer on gays, The Australian, 27 July, 2005.

Catholics softer on gays: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 27 July 2005: 5.
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CATHOLICS are the least homophobic of all religious groups and inner-city Melbourne the most gay-friendly region in the nation, while Baptists and theNorthern Territory are the most hostile.
"The Catholic Church may have less doctrinal authority over its congregation than some other Christian and non-Christian churches," the study says. The report does not separate out non-Christian groups, including Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, but on the whole finds them to be slightly more homophobic than Anglicans and Catholics.
CATHOLICS are the least homophobic of all religious groups and inner-city Melbourne the most gay-friendly region in the nation, while Baptists and theNorthern Territory are the most hostile.
Central Sydney, which carries the reputation of being Australia's gay capital, was almost twice as homophobic as inner-city Melbourne, an Australia Institute study found.
Queensland and Tasmania were the most homophobic states and Victoria the least.
Men were far more likely to be homophobic, with 43 per cent believing homosexuality to be immoral, compared with 27 per cent of women.
Only women in the NSW Hunter Valley region bucked this trend, with 37 per cent considered to be biased against homosexuals compared with 28 per cent of men.
Study authors Clive Hamilton and Michael Flood said it was "counter-intuitive" that Catholics were the most tolerant religious group, considering thedenomination's strong stance against gay priests and gay marriage.
Only 34 per cent of Catholic parishioners believed homosexuality to be immoral.
"The Catholic Church may have less doctrinal authority over its congregation than some other Christian and non-Christian churches," the study says. The report does not separate out non-Christian groups, including Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, but on the whole finds them to be slightly more homophobic than Anglicans and Catholics.
The most homophobic religious grouping were those identifying as Baptists, then evangelical Christians, Presbyterians and Methodists.
About a quarter of respondents with a tertiary education held homophobic views, compared with almost half of those who did not complete high school.
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Tuesday 26 July 2005

HIZB UT-TAHRIR SECURITY CONCERNS IN COVERING

CONCERNS OVER SECURITY ISSUES IN COVERING THE HIZB

NOTE TO SECURITY AT NEWS LTD.



The presser was held upstairs at 134a Waterloo Street, Greenacre,
which is where they held the meeting that the Sun Herald reported.

Phil Black at Ch 7 specifically asked his (freelance) cameraman to
take a shot of the man filming us. He said he can make this available
to us if we wish.
His number is 0409 713 554. He's great.
He says he didn't like it but didn't feel particularly threatened. He
has the next two days off.

As for me I didn't like it and didn't feel particularly comfortable
about it, particularly as Ashraf blames me for the last wave of
stories about them in 2002 when the media exposed that he worked for
North Sydney Council.

Media present included the SMH, the commercial TV channels and SBS.

Thanks. Their next public meeting is at Auburn Townhall at 6pm next
Saturday. If they run true to form anyone can go along and listen to
their diatribe against the evils of Western society, gays, christians,
jews, hindus, capitalists and communists and multiculturalists, and
their mission here in Australia to help bring about the islamic
caliphate. As I said their former leaders who went on to form his own
group in the UK organised a conference in London called September 11:
A Towering Day in History.

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Monday 25 July 2005

Pressure makes us stronger, say local radicals, The Australian, 25 July, 2005.





Pressure makes us stronger, say local radicals: [1 All-round Country Edition]

John Stapleton, Jennifer Sexton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 25 July 2005: 2.
"He is implying we should not advocate an Islam that is a threat to Western capitalism." Hizb ut-[Tahrir] does not promote violence but ultimately wants the world to convert to Islam and has described suicide bombers as martyrs to the cause. The group regularly meets in Sydney, and a gathering on Friday night attracted 30 to 50 new recruits.
"The Hizb condemns violence as a means to achieve its aim," Mr [Doureihi] said. "None of the London bombers were members of Hizb ut- Tahrir." The Russian Supreme Court put Hizb ut-Tahrir on a list of banned terrorist organisations in February 2003 for its links with Chechen separatists, and Germany outlawed the group the same year on charges of anti-Semitism. It is banned in much of the Islamic world.

Full Text


A RADICAL Islamic group under investigation in Britain for links to a London bomber has vowed to keep recruiting in Australia.
A spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir said the group's membership was growing and the more they were attacked the stronger they became.
"The more we come under pressure the more we return closer to Islam," said Wassim Doureihi yesterday.
John Howard called on Muslim leaders to refrain from inciting hatred and intolerance. "There is an obligation of tolerance and respect on the part of all of us for bona fide different views on religion and politics and so forth," Mr Howard told the Ten Network.
"But there is a reciprocal obligation on leaders of communities, be they religious or otherwise, not to incite hatred, not to preach intolerance, and that's a responsibility that Islamic leaders in Australia carry very heavily." Mr Doureihi said the comments were an attack on the core of Islam, which was incompatible with capitalism and Australia's secular society.
"It is becoming more and more clear that the issue is Islam itself, not just radicals or moderates," Mr Doureihi said.
"He is implying we should not advocate an Islam that is a threat to Western capitalism." Hizb ut-Tahrir does not promote violence but ultimately wants the world to convert to Islam and has described suicide bombers as martyrs to the cause. The group regularly meets in Sydney, and a gathering on Friday night attracted 30 to 50 new recruits.
Links between Hizb and one of the July 7 bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, were being investigated by British police.
"The Hizb condemns violence as a means to achieve its aim," Mr Doureihi said. "None of the London bombers were members of Hizb ut- Tahrir." The Russian Supreme Court put Hizb ut-Tahrir on a list of banned terrorist organisations in February 2003 for its links with Chechen separatists, and Germany outlawed the group the same year on charges of anti-Semitism. It is banned in much of the Islamic world.
A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the Hizb was not a banned terrorist organisation in Australia, the US or Britain. "There is no offence for people having extremist views," Mr Ruddock's spokeswoman said.
A director of the Islamic Council of Victoria, Waleed Aly, said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's suggestion that moderate Islamic leaders needed to be more vocal in condemning terrorism were "profoundly unfair".
"The suggestion we haven't done enough to condemn terrorism is frankly offensive," Mr Aly said, warning that criticising radicals could encourage extremist behaviour.
"If (radical groups) are truly extreme, they are likely to ignore condemnation and in fact it would embolden and intensify the rhetoric."
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Friday 22 July 2005

Detention kids back to school, The Australian, 22 July, 2005.

Detention kids back to school: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 22 July 2005: 3.
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Ian Hwang, 11, and his sister Janie Hwang, 6, were released from Villawood detention centre late on Wednesday, along with their mother, Young Lee, who had been arrested for overstaying her visa.
TWO Korean children yesterday made an exuberant return to their school in Sydney's inner west where four months ago they were forcibly removed by immigration officials.
Ian Hwang, 11, and his sister Janie Hwang, 6, were released from Villawood detention centre late on Wednesday, along with their mother, Young Lee, who had been arrested for overstaying her visa.
Arriving at the school yesterday, Ian described himself as very happy to be back among his schoolmates.
"It was pretty bad," he said of detention. "I saw some bad things, someone tried to commit suicide. It was a pretty bad experience. I never want to go back to a place like that again."
Despite the fact Ms Lee overstayed her visa and had used a false passport while in Australia, the family's lawyer, Michaela Byers, said they were considering legal action against the Government.
Ms Byers said the children were legally in Australia on bridging visas at the time they were detained.
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Monday 18 July 2005

Schoolboys rule the world in robot wars, The Australian, 18 July, 2005.

Schoolboys rule the world in robot wars: [2 All-round First Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 18 July 2005: 5.
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The win places Cranbrook, which has its own dedicated centre, at the forefront of the development of robotic skills among young people. Robotics is widely seen as a new and rapidly developing frontier for future scientists.
A GROUP of Australian schoolboys has won the world championships in robotics, beating more than 100 teams from 30 different countries.
The team of Year 8 boys, from the exclusive Cranbrook School in Sydney's eastern suburbs, had to design and build a robot and write a computer program to make it operate.
At the World Robocup Junior Championships yesterday in Osaka, Japan, they had to program their robot to navigate a three- dimensional house, complete with ramps and obstacles, following a catastrophe which had taken place in the house.
Victims had to be identified and rescued. The boys navigated the house faster than any other team, narrowly beating Japan and China for first place.
The win places Cranbrook, which has its own dedicated centre, at the forefront of the development of robotic skills among young people. Robotics is widely seen as a new and rapidly developing frontier for future scientists.
Team member Ronny Schneider said they had observed the other teams closely. "From that, we programmed new ideas and we improved our times significantly," he said.
Cranbrook headmaster Jeremy Madin said robotics was "a great discipline".
"It combines skills in science, information technology, computer programming, mathematics and communications," he said.
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Cameras encounter resistance - Terror in London, The Australian, 18 July, 2005.

Cameras encounter resistance - Terror in London: [1 All-round Country Edition]

Anna Hodgekiss, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 18 July 2005: 12.
Associate professor in criminology at the University of Melbourne Adam Sutton, co-author with Monash University's Dean Wilson of a paper on the politics of public or open-street CCTV in Australia, said Australians had been much slower to accept this as a part of daily life.
"Australia has been slow to join the surveillance revolution, and much of the CCTV resistance stems from a lack of promotion on a national level," Professor Sutton said.

Full Text

THE blanket coverage of London by closed-circuit television, which played such an important role in rapidly identifying the bombers, is unlikely to reach Australia quickly.
While the average Londoner appears on CCTV 300 times a day, and this is widely accepted as the price for security, there is considerable resistance in Australia, according to a recent study.
Associate professor in criminology at the University of Melbourne Adam Sutton, co-author with Monash University's Dean Wilson of a paper on the politics of public or open-street CCTV in Australia, said Australians had been much slower to accept this as a part of daily life.
For example, Sydney, with a population of more than 4million, has only 48 public CCTVs. In Melbourne, with a similar population, there are 23. In Darwin there are none, while in Canberra there are only 15.
Professor Sutton, whose paper appeared in the journal Surveillance and Society, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his predecessors had supported expanding CCTV surveillance, but there had been no such impetus in Australia.
He said support was strongest in Perth, which led the country with 135 public cameras, and Brisbane, which had 51 CCTVs.
Professor Sutton said there was social resistance to this level of surveillance, and the federal system made it difficult for the central government to dictate what local governments do.
While Britain had gone to one extreme, with cameras on every corner, Australians did not necessarily see this as appropriate or effective in preventing crime or terrorism.
"Australia has been slow to join the surveillance revolution, and much of the CCTV resistance stems from a lack of promotion on a national level," Professor Sutton said.
"While central government often helps with set-up costs, the running of it and operating costs fall to local government."
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Cornelia 'treated like an animal', The Australian, 18 July, 2005.

Cornelia `treated like an animal': [2 All-round First Edition]

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 18 July 2005: 5.
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NSW Institute of Psychiatry director Louise Newman said unless specific action was taken to ensure that such a situation could never reoccur, "we are all guilty of harming [CORNELIA Rau]".
The 60 Minutes footage showed an apparently happy Ms Rau walking along bush tracks. She declared it was "good to be back in nature" after her long time behind bars. Ms Rau said she had lied about her identity, claiming to be a German tourist, because she did not want to get caught up with a cult in which she had been previously involved.
CORNELIA Rau claimed last night she had been mistreated throughout the 10 months she was wrongly detained as a suspected illegal immigrant.
Mr Rau said she had been "treated like an animal" during the ordeal that sparked a federal inquiry and prime ministerial apology last week.
"It was pretty hard," she told the Nine Network's 60 Minutes. She described the entire experience as a "black hole in my life".
Despite being diagnosed as suffering schizophrenia, Ms Rau denied she was mentally ill. "Definitely not," she said.
She did not hear voices and the authorities had got this "all wrong".
The 60 Minutes footage showed an apparently happy Ms Rau walking along bush tracks. She declared it was "good to be back in nature" after her long time behind bars. Ms Rau said she had lied about her identity, claiming to be a German tourist, because she did not want to get caught up with a cult in which she had been previously involved.
"I just felt pretty vulnerable," she said.
"I would never have imagined myself in any of the situations I was in."
Ms Ra said she was considered a troublemaker by officials for no apparent reason and repeatedly locked up in solitary confinement.
"It was pretty horrendous and I would never like anybody to go to a jail if they're not guilty of something," she said.
Asked what she expected of the Australian Government she said: "Well, I think it is important that I get truth in this matter, that people understand that I am a person who has been unjustly treated, and I would like people to respect that."
Ms Rau thought it was sad that she was not completely free, but "I feel some freedom".
"It is not as fabulous as I would like it to be," she said.
NSW Institute of Psychiatry director Louise Newman said unless specific action was taken to ensure that such a situation could never reoccur, "we are all guilty of harming Cornelia Rau".
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