Hate preacher can’t ‘bury’ court-ordered corrective social media posts

Muslim cleric Wissam Haddad has been stymied in a bid to ‘bury’ court-ordered notices on his social media platforms that admit he broke the law with shocking sermons against Jews.

Wissam Haddad leaves the Supreme Court after the nation's peak Jewish body won a legal action against the Islamic preacher and a religious centre in Western Sydney over anti-Semitic speeches. Picture: Nikki Short

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Hate preacher Wissam Haddad has been stymied in a bid to “bury” a series of corrective notices he is required to post on all his social media pages admitting he broke the law in a series of lectures and sermons that asserted Jews were “vile” and “treacherous” people.

Judge Angus Stewart ruled in the Federal Court this month that Mr Haddad had breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, upholding a complaint that the speeches were the “racist project” of a self-proclaimed “masjid (mosque) shock jock” indiscriminately targeting those of Jewish faith and ethnicity.

Justice Stewart granted an application by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) for a muzzle order on Mr Haddad that would find him in contempt of court should he racially discriminate against Jewish Australians in future.

The judge ordered the speeches be removed from social media but reserved judgment on the specific form of corrective notices that Mr Haddad and his Al Madina Dawah Centre would be required to post on their social media platforms, acknowledging he engaged in “unlawful behaviour based on racial hatred”.

Mr Haddad, who is also known as Abu Ousayd, had tried to escape the full impact of the orders, arguing that he should not be required to “pin” the corrective notices at the top of his social media pages because it would force him to “essentially advertise and promote” them.

But in a judgment released on Thursday Justice Stewart accepted expert evidence that such posts could quickly disappear from view, being overtaken by subsequent posts if not “pinned” on Instagram or made a “feature” on Facebook.

Justice Stewart found this was not onerous or unduly burdensome and that the educative purpose of the publication “contemplates some degree of promotion”.

Islamic preacher Wissam Haddad (second from left) and his solicitor Elias Tabchouri leave court. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian

“In short, the ‘pinning’ and ‘featuring’ of the posts will prevent them from disappearing from view in a short period of time, and it will prevent them from being deliberately buried by way of successive further posts,” Justice Stewart said.

“I do not regard it as disproportionate to the nature and extent of the wrong committed to require redress of that nature.”

ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim welcomed the decision, telling The Australian: “We see this as an essential part of counteracting the harm that was caused by their online promotion and reproduction of Haddad’s anti-Semitic speeches.”

Executive Council of Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot leave the Supreme Court. Picture: Nikki Short

Mr Haddad or speakers at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in southwest Sydney have called Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, recited parables about their killing, and said people should “spit” on Israel so its citizens “would drown”.

Justice Stewart ordered Mr Haddad not to facilitate “words, sounds or images (being) communicated otherwise than in private, which attribute characteristics to Jewish people on the basis of their group membership and which convey any of the disparaging imputations identified as being conveyed by the lectures”.

Mr Haddad appeared defiant in the wake of the ruling, his lawyer declaring outside the court that “he maintains that he has the right to quote religious scripture, as all parties do, the court has found he has that right”.

Mr Wertheim said he would call Mr Haddad back to court for potential contempt should he breach the court orders against him, saying the outcome “vindicated” months of community action against anti-Semitism.

“Common decency should dictate that free speech and freedom of religion do not include the right to racially vilify other people. Common decency should tell us that that is where to draw the line,” Mr Wertheim said.

He argued the verdict indicated current federal criminal anti-vilification laws were insufficient.

“The original proposals for prosecution were never tested. Those prosecutions were never brought,” he said.

“So we don’t know whether stronger laws are needed, but if the authorities believe that those laws were not sufficient to prosecute in a case like this, or in the case of the Opera House steps and the chanting of ‘F the Jews’ and much worse, then clearly the laws are in need of reform.”