Media Release
Western Blame-Shifting and Divisionary Tactics Continue

Sydney, Australia, 17th April 2010 - The Australian Government weighed in late this week to the story about Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki and the address he delivered at Lakemba Mosque last year through phone-link from Yemen. The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, said that he was very concerned about violent or extremist views being put to young Australians and that Muslim Community leaders needed to stop young Muslims from being exposed to these types of speakers.

Uthman Badar, Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir  in Australia, says in this regard,

 "The media coverage of this issue is just another example of the sensationalist and socially-destructive news coverage we have come to expect from the mainstream media. Only they can cook up the scenario of a potential threat from a lecture delivered over a year ago and one whose contents are unknown."

 "The proper context of the issue regarding Shaykh al-Awlaki is the American push to increase its influence in Yemen by exploiting the internal issues the country currently faces. What should be more concerning to any impartial observer - over and above the continued imperialism - is the American decision to extra-judicially assassinate a citizen of their own country without any due legal procedure whatsoever. Yet somehow the media and the politicians find the ideas of one man more concerning than the barbaric and illegitimate actions of a state."

 "If the Attorney-General is really concerned about extremist views being put to young people, he should stop disseminating his views and those of his party such as the justification of imperial wars, colonialism, and spreading democracy by stealth. Better still, he should be more concerned about the extremist actions of Western governments which are at the core of violence around the world. To be invading lands and shedding blood on the one hand and lecturing others about ideas on the other is grossly hypocritical."

 "The Government has no business in meddling with the affairs of the Muslim community or what goes on in our mosques. It has either turned fascist or adopted police-statism, or thinks it can discriminatively treat the Muslim community. If the Government really wants to help it should stop meddling in the affairs of the Muslim World, of which the local Muslim Community is an inseparable part."

 "We advise the Muslim community to not fall into the trap of using the labels of 'radical' and 'moderate', thereby assisting the Government strategy of creating divisions amongst us. Rather, continue to bravely account Western foreign policy and reject the blame-shifting and divisionary tactics of Western Governments."