Jihadi preacher concedes ‘sermons not private’ in hate speech case
Wissam Haddad has acknowledged his sermons on Jews after October 7 could be accessed broadly and would not stay confined to his Bankstown prayer centre.
Lawyers for jihadi preacher Wissam Haddad have conceded a central pillar of their defence, acknowledging the cleric’s sermons were not private amid a racial discrimination trial that has hinged on the public accessibility of his remarks.
Mr Haddad, who legally changed his first name to William more than 20 years ago but who is also known as Abu Ousayd, has sought to argue he was speaking only to his Muslim congregants at the Bankstown Al Madina Dawah Centre – a co-respondent in his Federal Court case brought by Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot – when he delivered sermons about the conflict in Israel after October 7, 2023.
At the beginning of the case’s closing remarks on Thursday, ECAJ barrister Peter Braham SC said Mr Haddad had conceded the argument and acknowledged his speeches were likely to be seen by an audience outside his congregation.
Mr Haddad’s barrister, Andrew Boe, confirmed this.
“We formally communicated to the appellant’s team that the respondents concede that the speeches were not … private,” Mr Boe said.
The partial concession means Justice Angus Stewart need only judge Mr Haddad’s potential breach of two other elements of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act – whether Mr Haddad’s sermons were likely to offend and whether they targeted those of a specific race, colour or national or ethnic origin.
The cleric has repeatedly argued his sermons were pulled from scripture and compared the actions of the 7th century Jewish tribe of Al Medina as detailed in the Koran with the alleged atrocities of Israel today.
Mr Boe will argue Mr Haddad’s sermons were in the public interest and had a clear liturgical purpose, thus being exempt from the Act under section 18D. Mr Braham said the speeches were “a racist project to start with” and should not be exempt.
“Seeking to explain the conduct of a nation – Israel – a long way from here by reference to the racial identity of the people Mr Haddad perceives as being in charge of it is itself a racist and offensive enterprise. The very project was offensive,” Mr Braham said.
“(Mr Haddad says) the purpose was to use scripture about the Jews in Medina to explain the war in Gaza. As soon as you realise that … is the purpose of the speeches, then it’s not a proper purpose in the public interest, because the only connection between those two matters is race.
“He wasn’t giving a speech about Gaza; he was giving a speech about different people in a different epoch (the Jews of Al Medina). So of course, it had to be implicit in what he was saying that nothing has changed (about) the Jews. Otherwise, the whole project made no sense.”
Mr Boe has previously compared Jewish Australians taking offence with Mr Haddad’s purportedly private speeches to “a person with a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography on the web and then complaining about being offended by it”. Mr Braham contested this.
“Part of participation in civil society is being able to engage in debates that concern you. Part of participating in society, for a Jewish person, is being able to inform yourself … of the things that are going on in the public sphere that concern Jews, and that includes being able to search up anti-Semitic material,” Mr Braham said.
“It would be quite wrong … to convey in any way the idea that offensive things can happen online concerning Jews that are about Jews that might be thought to affect their safety and their participation in civil society, and they don’t contravene the Act, because all the Jews have to do is stay away from that part of the internet.”
He also argued Jewish Australians who saw edited sections of Mr Haddad’s sermons in the media and therefore missed its context were still legally vilified.
“He wanted to say something about Jews, and it wasn’t nuanced. You don’t get much more from the context,” Mr Braham said. “It’s a speech about Jews, that’s how it’s introduced.
“You can hear the beginning of a hideous diatribe against your race and turn off the device … you (don’t) have to sit through the whole thing in order to feel offence.”
Mr Haddad took to the witness box on Wednesday, defending his preachings in the face of Mr Braham’s suggestion he was a wannabe influencer who “revelled” in “flippant provocations”.
The wide-ranging cross-examination presented Mr Haddad with a patchwork of alleged media stunts he conducted in the lead-up to five speeches about Jews that provoked the legal action, which Mr Braham contended indicated a pattern of willing and incendiary public dialogue by Mr Haddad.
He told the Federal Court he “never set out to insult Jews” when he recited parables about their killing and made sermons at his Bankstown prayer centre in Sydney’s southwest calling them treacherous and vile.
Probing this defence, Mr Braham at one stage asked Mr Haddad why he had parroted an anti-Semitic trope suggesting Jewish cabalists controlled mass media and Hollywood, with Mr Haddad saying he had been referencing the Israeli government.
“Jews of the Israeli government don’t have Hollywood blockbuster films, Mr Haddad, Hollywood’s in Los Angeles in America,” Mr Braham said.
Mr Haddad told the barrister he “wouldn’t have a clue” where Hollywood was because he had “never been to the States”.
It was part of a series of stipulations he made in the witness box about his prior sermons, suggesting remarks that seemingly applied to the entire Jewish diaspora were rather about Jews who practised their faith or specific indictments of senior Israeli government figures. His audience of Muslim congregants would understand these stipulations implicitly, the court heard.
ECAJ is seeking declarations that Mr Haddad contravened section 18C, injunctions to remove the five offending sermons from the internet, and an order that the cleric refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
The trial will conclude on Friday with the remainder of Mr Braham’s and Mr Boe’s closing remarks, before Justice Stewart retires to consider his judgment.
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