KAMIN GOCK, REPORTER: Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, preaches to his followers in person and online.
WISSAM HADDAD (August 2024): If you are anything but a Muslim, you’re a loser and the only way to be a winner is to be a Muslim.
KAMIN GOCK: The cleric speaks at a religious organisation in Western Sydney called the Al Madina Dawah Centre.
WISSAM HADDAD (November 2023): So the Yahud, the Jews, they have been a very mischievous people, causing alfitna even before the coming of Muhammed (arabic).
KAMIN GOCK: But comments he made in November last year have landed him and the centre in the Federal Court.
WISSAM HADDAD (November 2023): They had their hand everywhere so they were in the media, as they do today, and they would use this against the weak. Hiding like the cowards that they are, the cowards that they are today.
KAMIN GOCK: The Executive Council of Australian Jewry commenced the proceedings alleging his speeches include derogatory generalisations about Jewish people breaching provisions under the Racial Discrimination Act
The peak body says documents filed in court allege Mr Haddad has described Jewish people as “vile” and “treacherous”.
PETER WERTHEIM, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN JEWRY: We can’t allow these sorts of exceptional behaviours to go unremarked, because the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
KAMIN GOCK: Mr Haddad’s lawyer Elias Tabchouri says his client intends to defend the matter.
ELIAS TABCHOURI, MACQUARIE LAW GROUP: In November, when these comments were said to be made, there were a lot of issues going on, There were a lot of people who were suffering, both here and overseas, in relation to what they were witnessing on a day to day basis, before their own eyes on TV and what had been published.
There were a lot of comments that were made, and we said those comments were misconstrued in many ways by those who seek to interpret them for whatever purpose they may have.
KAMIN GOCK: The two parties were engaged in dialogue for months before this legal action.
PETER WERTHEIN: These sorts of proceedings cannot be commenced unless there is first a complaint lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission, which is what we did, and an attempt made to resolve the matter through conciliation, which is, again, what we did.
The attempts were not successful, and so the complaint before the Human Rights Commission has been terminated, and that then opens the way for these proceedings to be commenced.
ELIAS TABCHOUR: He has sought to be conciliatory. He has offered for people who do have issues with what he has said, to attend his center, to attend the mosque, to sit down so he can clarify the comments with them in front of his congregation and make sure that they’re aware of exactly what he means by his comments.
He’s even happy to release a joint statement together as a unified body.
KAMIN GOCK: At the turn of the century the Executive Council of Australian Jewry successfully argued in the Federal Court that Fredrick Toben breached the Racial Discrimination Act.
DR BILL SWANNIE, AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY: The Toben case was a famous early case in the Racial Discrimination Act, and that case involved a website which had all sorts of Holocaust denial material on it, and that was an important test case which actually proved that point, that Jewish people are protected under the Racial Discrimination Act.
So if there is vilification of Jewish people, then that could potentially breach the Racial Discrimination Act.
PETER WERTHEIN: It’s sad and disappointing to us that we feel that on this occasion, once again, we have no alternative but to take this kind of action.
KAMIN GOCK: Dr Bill Swannie at the Australian Catholic University specialises in human rights and anti-discrimination law.
BILL SWANNIE: The test under the Racial Discrimination Act is the conduct must be reasonably likely, in all the circumstances to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person and it has to be based on the race or the ethic group of the person or the group.
These types of claims are quite rare in my experience. It is a low threshold in terms of the Racial Discrimination Act but because of the compulsory conciliation requirement, very few of them go to court and very few of them are known about by the public.
KAMIN GOCK: All proceedings for this case are expected to play out early next year.
ELIAS TABCHOUR: I think there is a strong defence because a lot of what he is saying is seeking to educate, a lot of what he is saying is in circumstances where it won’t be found, in our view, to breach that section.
PETER WERTHEIN: It is the job of government and law enforcement agencies to maintain social peace and harmony in this country. It’s not, it shouldn’t be the job of our community, or indeed any community, to have to do that.
But in the absence of any action in relation to the behaviour that we’ve been talking about, our community has just felt that we’ve had no alternative.