A Federal Court judge has ruled that a series of lectures by Muslim preacher Wissam Haddad must be removed from social media.(ABC News: Nandini Dhir)
A judge has ruled a series of lectures by Sydney preacher Wissam Haddad must be removed after finding them to contain "racist and antisemitic material".
The lectures in questions were a series of posts made by Mr Haddad, also known as Abu Oysayd, in 2023.
In October 2024, the Executive Council of Jewry launched legal action against Mr Hassad's speeches, alleging they contravened the Racial Discrimination Act.
A series of lectures delivered by an Islamic preacher at a Sydney prayer centre must be removed from social media under orders from a Federal Court judge who found they contained "fundamentally racist and antisemitic" material.
Wissam Haddad, who is also known as Abu Ousayd, gave the speeches at Bankstown's Al Madina Dawah Centre in November 2023.
In the Federal Court, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) alleged he contravened the Racial Discrimination Act, including by portraying Jewish people as "wicked", "scheming", "vile", "mischievous" and "descendants of apes and pigs".
Mr Haddad's lawyers argued the speeches were derived in substance from religious texts including the Koran, were delivered only to a Muslim audience in private and did not refer to Australian Jewish people.
Sydney preacher Wissam Haddam outside Federal Court on Tuesday.(ABC News: Nandini Dhir)
Justice Angus Stewart today found the speeches contravened the Racial Discrimination Act and rejected Mr Haddad's defences.
The court found the series of lectures conveyed "disparaging imputations" about Jewish people, based on race or ethnic origin, that were reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate Jews in Australia.
"The imputations include age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist and antisemitic; they make perverse generalisations against Jewish people as a group," the judge said in a summary of his decision.
In his full judgment, Justice Stewart said the established imputations — or meanings — were "devastatingly offensive and insulting".
He said Jewish people in Australia would have experienced the comments to be harassing and intimidating, "all the more so" because they were made at a time of "heightened vulnerability and fragility".
"Those effects on Jews in Australia would be profound and serious."
The court found passages in an interview and sermon by Mr Haddad contained critical and disparaging things about the actions of the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza and about Zionists.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry's co-CEO Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot outside court.(ABC News: Nandini Dhir)
However, the judge found the "ordinary, reasonable listener" would not understand those things to be about Jewish people in general.
"That person would understand that not all Jews are Zionists and that disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group," Justice Stewart said.
"Also, political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity.
"The conclusion that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel is the corollary of the conclusion that to blame Jews for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; the one flows from the other."
Justice Stewart said he was satisfied Mr Haddad and the centre should be ordered to publish corrective notices on their social media accounts for 30 days, but will hear the parties further on the terms.
He said the ECAJ's case had been "overwhelmingly successful" and there was no reason why Mr Haddad should not have to pay costs.
The ECAJ's counsel Peter Braham SC labelled the speeches as "dangerous" last month and said they were calculated to "denigrate all Jewish people".
He said they aimed to inform the audience about Jews "as a people" using stories from the time of the prophet.
Mr Haddad had sought to persuade followers that Jewish people had "certain immutable and eternal characteristics" that cause them to "come into conflict with Muslims" and be "the objects of contempt and hatred", Mr Braham said.
Andrew Boe, representing Mr Haddad, told the hearing a democratic society must include room for "the confronting, the challenging, even the shocking" and urged the court to take a "rigorous and detached" approach in applying the law.
Mr Haddad's legal team said some speeches contained direct and allegorical references to the Koran and Hadith, together with "political commentary on the Gaza war".
Lawyer Elias Tabchouri, who represents Mr Haddad, outside court.(ABC News: Nandini Dhir)
When Mr Haddad stepped into the witness box, he initially appeared to distance himself from the publication of the lectures online, but eventually accepted he was aware they would be published.
Under cross-examination he insisted he was speaking in his sermons about "Jews of faith, not of ethnicity" and denied he had set out to attract attention by giving controversial and disparaging speeches about Jews.
He rejected Mr Baraham's proposition that he "just wanted to be controversial by being racist".
Mr Haddad's lawyers also argued that if the court found the speeches were unlawful, a section of the Racial Discrimination Act must be unconstitutional because it would be prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
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