Cleric accused of incitement to rape

A SENIOR Australian Muslim cleric triggered national outrage yesterday for likening women who dress immodestly to meat that is left out for prey to eat.

Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali’s spokesman said the cleric’s comments in a sermon last month to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan had been taken out of context in a report in The Australian newspaper.

But the spokesman, Keysar Trad, did not challenge the accuracy of the paper’s translation.

“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 cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?”

The Australian quoted Mr Hilali as saying. “The uncovered meat is the problem.”

“If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,” he said, referring to the headdress worn by some Muslim women.

There was widespread condemnation yesterday of the cleric’s comments from other Muslim leaders, civil libertarians and political leaders.

Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said Hilali’s comment was an incitement to rape and that Australia’s Muslims should force him to resign.

“This is inciting young men to a violent crime because it is the woman’s fault,” Ms Goward said. “It is time the Islamic community did more than say they were horrified. I think it is time he left.”

Hilali is the top cleric at Sydney’s largest mosque, and is considered the most senior Islamic leader by many Muslims in Australia and New Zealand.

He has in the past served as an adviser to the Australian government on Muslim issues, but triggered a controversy in 2004 for saying in a sermon in Lebanon that the September 11 attacks were “God’s work against the oppressors.” Mr Hilali said later he did not mean that he supported the attacks, or terrorism.