February 19, 2025
A leading Muslim organisation enlisted a prominent Hizb ut-Tahrir activist for five years hosting “youth-focused workshops” and prayer services while it received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal government funding.
The Australian can reveal Stand 4 Palestine organiser and Hizb ut-Tahrir activist Mohammed al-Wahwah worked with prominent organisation United Muslims of Australia for a five-year period up to at least mid-2023.
In the five years Mr al-Wahwah worked with the UMA – which told The Australian he was “never employed” but did not clarify if his involvement was voluntary – the organisation received more than $150,000 in federal money across the three years inclusive from 2021.
Last year, it received $3.5m in funding from federal grants designed to promote social cohesion.
A Friday prayers speaker and workshop leader on the UMA’s annual student-focused programs, Mr al-Wahwah was described in a 2021 Islamic podcast as one of the community’s leading youth educators, spruiking his “great work through a range of organisations … including the United Muslims of Australia”.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in many countries, including the UK, as an anti-Semitic organisation that actively promotes and encourages terrorism.
The revelation comes amid the fallout from an anti-Semitic tirade by two Sydney nurses, who received support from Hizb ut-Tahrir and some mainstream Muslim groups in a communique that claimed the pair were victims of “manufactured outrage”.
The Coalition demanded the government pull grant funding from any of the 50-plus groups and Muslim leaders who signed the statement, which included mainstream bodies such as the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
Neither the UMA nor Mr al-Wahwah provided clarity on when his involvement with the group ceased, although he stopped appearing on its social media pages in July 2023.
A senior member of the UMA said Mr al-Wahwah could have been a “participant” at the group’s community centre but, according to its records, Mr al-Wahwah’s involvement with the group began in 2019 on its community engagement division, helping promote, run and deliver annual youth-focused workshops in at least 2019, 2020 and 2021, before delivering prayer services in 2023.
The Australian is not suggesting whatsoever that the UMA endorses or works with Hizb ut-Tahrir, or shares any of its views, just that a member of that group worked with it across multiple years.
Separately, sheik Ibrahim Dadoun, who remains one of UMA’s imams, told a Hizb ut-Tahrir-organised rally the day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre that he was “elated and smiling”.
He has since said his comments were referring to Gazans breaking free from occupation and not specifically about Hamas’s attacks.
The UMA was established and is run by prominent Muslim leader sheik Shadi Alsuleiman, a respected figure who is part of the NSW government’s Faith Affairs Council and president of the Australian National Imams Council, which has recently condemned anti-Semitism and was the notable absence from Monday’s Stand 4 Palestine communique.
Multicultural Affairs Assistant Minister Julian Hill reiterated that Sheik Alsuleiman was a “well-respected, well-regarded leader” who had a history of working cooperatively with Labor and Coalition governments.
“The UMA has a long history of helping young Muslims, and if the opposition plans to slash funding for critical services including youth work, family violence and emergency relief then they should say so,” Mr Hill said.
However, he didn’t respond to questions on whether the government was aware a Hizb ut-Tahrir leader had worked for five years with the group – and the appropriateness of that, given it received grants – or whether he had been assured that involvement had now ceased.
In mid-2024, Stand 4 Palestine – the group was established by Hizb ut-Tahrir activists and remains largely co-ordinated by them – spruiked how “Hizb ut-Tahrir activist” Mr al-Wahwah would address Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque.
In November, he appeared on Hizb ut-Tahrir’s newly launched Nahda Media platform, alongside prominent group member Wassim Doureihi.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it appeared the government had failed in its “basic due diligence” when allocating grants.
“Since October 7, multiple organisations (with apparent links to) extremism have received taxpayers’ money to promote social cohesion,” Senator Paterson said.
“Even when this has been pointed out, Labor has failed to rescind a single grant.
“This sends a shocking message that extremism is not just acceptable but endorsed by Home Affairs.”
Extremism expert Josh Roose said Hizb ut-Tahrir’s modus operandi was operating in the “grey areas between legality and illegality”, while weaving its narrative into that typically of the hard left, appropriating elements to create “solidarity”.
“(Hizb ut-Tahrir) speak in sound bites and obfuscate,” the Deakin University associate professor said.
“They advocate for extremism but then reject the notion that they support terrorism. They are difficult to pin down, and they enjoy operating (in that grey space) because they have a sense of deniability.
“They’re effective in shaping public discourse and gaining media attention without the securitisation (that follows more overt groups).”
Dr Roose said the irony was that while rallying against the “West”, most Hizb ut-Tahrir members would have been born and educated in Australia, but now sought to gain support among political discourses “resisting” it.
“They’ve woven their narrative into left-wing Marxist political discourse, the idea of oppressor and victim,” he said.
Although not representative of the wider Muslim community, Stand 4 Palestine has skyrocketed in prominence since its 2023 establishment, particularly on social media among young people and activists.
“But (Hizb ut-Tahrir’s) hatred of Israel and the Jewish community also ties into the extremist right,” Dr Roose said, adding that while he understood an “appeal” to give the group a terror designation, it would only drive its operations out of the spotlight.
“It’s been banned in the United Kingdom, across Europe and Asia, and most recently India. But if you were to drive them underground, you could create a sense of victimisation and targeting of the Muslim community as a whole.”
