Australian Muslim cleric blames women for rape

Australia's most senior Islamic cleric has set off a firestorm of controversy after comparing women without headscarves to "uncovered meat" inviting sexual assault, comments that he has since apologized for. "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's?" Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali was quoted as saying in a sermon to some 500 worshippers in Sydney last month.

"The uncovered meat is the problem," he was quoted as saying in The Australian newspaper.

"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. Hilali also criticized women who "sway suggestively" and wear cosmetic makeup, implying they attracted sexual attack. "Then you get a judge without mercy... and gives you 65 years," he added. Amid calls for his resignation after the newspaper published his remarks, Hilali denied he was condoning rape in his sermon.

In a statement released Thursday, Hilali apologized to women he had offended. "I had only intended to protect women's honour, something lost in The Australian presentation of my talk," he said. He also said in the statement that he was shocked by the reaction. "The presentation related to religious teachings on modesty and not to go to extremes in enticements, this does not condone rape, I condemn rape," he said in a statement published by The Australian newspaper.

"Women in our Australian society have the freedom and right to dress as they choose, the duty of man is to avert his glance or walk away," he said. The cleric's comments hit a nerve in both political officials and other Muslim leaders. Prime Minister John Howard called the remarks "appalling and reprehensible." "The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous," Howard said. Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said the nation's Muslims should force him to resign.

"This is inciting young men to a violent crime because it is the woman's fault," Goward told television's Nine Network. "It is time the Islamic community did more than say they were horrified. I think it is time he left." The leader of Australia's largest Islamic organization also threatened to bar the cleric from teaching at Lakemba Mosque in Western Sydney. "The board (of the LMA) has unlimited powers in respect of his teachings in the mosque. We can do anything that's required to prevent him from teaching in our mosque. If you haven't got the backing of Australia's largest and most established Islamic organization then you are out on a limb," Tom Zreika, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, which owns the mosque, is quoted as saying in the newspaper.

But Zreika also said the LMA had yet to fully review the comments and that the cleric should be offered the benefit of the doubt until his wrongdoing was proven. The Egyptian-born 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. In the past, he has served as an adviser to the Australian government on Muslim issues. Hilali is no stranger to controversy. He was accused of praising suicide bombers in 2004 after saying in a sermon that the Sept. 11 attacks were "God's work against the oppressors."

He later said that he did not mean that he supported either the attacks or terrorism. Relations between Australia's nearly 300,000 Muslims and the majority Christian-heritage population are tense following racial riots last December that often pitted white gangs against youths of Middle Eastern decent. Observers say the cleric's comments were seen as particularly insensitive because Sydney was the scene in 2000 of a series of gang rapes by a group pf Lebanese Australian youths who targeted young non-Muslim women.

Source News.google.co.in