June 30, 2024
Middle East group uses Australian branch to sidestep overseas ban
The Islamist group Hizb utTahrir is using its Australian branch to run online campaigns in the UK, Pakistan and Bangladesh where it is banned as a terrorist organisation.
The organisation, which is based in Lebanon, advocates for the re-establishment of a caliphate a political-religious Muslim state.
Despite Jewish leaders' calls for it to be banned as an antiSemitic group that supports terrorism, it is legal in Australia and operates as a not-for-profit organisation under NSW law.
Figures linked to Hizb utTahrir also run registered charities that can accept taxdeductible donations.
Until January, it had also operated for many years in the UK despite calls for it to be banned.
However, after a press release emerged in which Hizb utTahrir praised Hamas for the October 7 attacks in Israel, Home Secretary James Cleverly banned the group, saying it "actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling 7 October attacks".
He warned "anyone who belongs to and invites support for them will face consequences".
The UK action followed bans in Pakistan, in 2004, and Bangladesh, in 2009.
It has recently been reported that Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia has covertly operated a group named Stand4Palestine, which has been part of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses, glorifying terrorism and calling for boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses.
The Sunday Mail can reveal the Stand4Palestine group has been used by Hizb ut-Tahrir to evade the bans in the UK, Pakistan and Bangladesh and push pro-Hamas propaganda.
One piece of online propaganda includes a video in Bangladesh entitled "Freedom fighters" that celebrates Israelis being stabbed, blown up on buses, shot in their homes and taken hostage.
The group's vehicle for dissemination into countries where it is banned has been WhatsApp groups, with more than 11,000 members. Nearly 25 per cent of members are located in the UK, as is one of the group's administrators. Most of the WhatsApp messages have their origin in Australia.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the threat posed by Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia must be taken seriously.
"While our social cohesion is under unprecedented pressure, it is advocating and promoting terrorism across the world, even in our democratic allies that have rightly banned it," he said.
"Our authorities gave Hizb ut-Tahrir an inch and it's taken a mile." Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the federal government needed to act.
"It would be deeply disturbing if the failure to list Hizb utTahrir as a terrorist organisation allows the banned UK group to relocate here," he said.
"We don't want extremists outlawed by our closest partners to operate with impunity on our turf due to an unwillingness to act."
