Pan-Islamic fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has made stunning claims about Australia and anti-Semitism in a Q&A video session just posted to their local website.
The news comes weeks after the Bondi Beach terror attack on Dec. 14 that targeted a Jewish celebration and claimed 15 lives while injuring 40 others.
The radical Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in numerous countries, including the Muslim-majority Egypt, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, as well as the UK, Germany, India, and Russia—but it remains unrestricted in Australia.
In a video posted by the Bankstown-based group on Jan. 10, prominent Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Wassim Doureihi spoke about how Australians handled the Bondi terror incidents, saying they were “well adept to inflicting violence on other countries, but not to it being reciprocated.”
Doureihi, who sits against a backdrop of two black and white Islamist flags, further claims that Australia is known for “exporting violence on an industrial scale but not being recipients on any meaningful scale.”
He then claims the nation has been caught up in “mass hysteria and paranoia” in the wake of the Bondi attacks, the worst ever terrorist incident on Australian soil.
The discussion then went into the topic of anti-Semitism, with Doureihi claiming the concept was manufactured and was used to push for Jewish statehood in Israel.
“There is a great degree of scepticism in this country about the whole notion of anti-Semitism, its severity, its scale and the politicisation of anti-Semitism to achieve a virtually Zionist end,” Doureihi claimed.
He also refuted findings from Australian Federal Police that the father-son duo responsible for the attack were inspired by ISIS.
“Because there’s no evidence to point to that apart from the flag crudely crafted and some vague notion referring to their past, and no one knows and no one has the capacity to verify the veracity of their claims,” he said.
The comments come after Hizb ut-Tahrir told a Sydney conference in November that the only way forward for the West is to join Islam, because the West “sucks blood from humanity.”
In a statement countering calls for their banning, the Australian wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir claimed to be unfairly targeted in the wake of the Bondi attack.
A Splinter Group from the Muslim Brotherhood
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a splinter group formed in 1953 after its founder, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, felt the Muslim Brotherhood—also banned across several Muslim nations—was too “moderate, and too accommodating of the West,” according to a journal article by Turkish-American scholar Zeyno Baran.
While both groups advocate for a global Islamic caliphate (government), they differ in that Hizb ut-Tahrir opposes democratic systems and human rights.
Many radical movements can trace their lineage to Egyptian Marxist theorist Sayyid Qutb, the ideological founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In his theories, Qutb incorporated the Marxist idea of violent revolution into Muslim teachings, distorting its original ideas.
“Upon mention of jihad, many immediately think of ‘holy war,’ but in Arabic, jihad simply means to struggle or to fight.
“In mainstream Islam, it can be taken to mean internal conflict (self-perfection) or defensive jihad. Qutb, however, extended this definition to include proactive and unbridled use of violence in the ‘holy war’ of jihad,” according to The Epoch Times’ article, The Communist Roots of Terrorism.
Anti-Hate Legislation ‘Complex’, Minister Says
While Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned in the UK in 2024, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke—who weeks ago earmarked banning the group—maintains the process locally is complex.
“There are constitutional challenges to address and there is nothing from overseas to copy,” he said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“Normally groups are only banned when they call for violence.
“The government is making the decision to take action against groups who spread the kind of hate that causes serious harm to our community. This is a world first. But it’s the right decision.”
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the government was working to prioritise new laws against hate, division and radicalisation.
“The proposed laws will build upon the government’s existing hate speech laws which were introduced last year,” she said.
“The development of these new laws is well underway, and the government is consulting with a range of stakeholders, particularly in the Jewish community.”
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) says existing laws are insufficient and more is needed.
“The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has long maintained that the current criminal laws proscribing hate speech fall well short of community expectations and have left the community unprotected against egregious forms of hate speech, such as the chants of ‘[expletive] the Jews’ at the Sydney Opera House on 9 October 2023, and the rantings of religious hate preachers,” ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim told The Epoch Times.
“There are also no protections against extremist organisations which promote hatred as part of their plans to destroy democracy, freedom and the rule of law, but which do not quite meet the threshold to be listed as terrorist organisations.
“The concerns we have been expressing for many years have become especially acute since the horrific events at Bondi Beach on December 14. Such events make all Australians unsafe, not just those who are targeted.”
NSW Introduces Laws to Shut Down Illegal Religious Premises
On Jan. 12, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns introduced stronger powers for councils to shut down illegal premises housing hate preachers.
Under the new measures, when a council determines that a place of public worship is operating without lawful planning approval, it will be able to issue a notice to stop its unlawful use.
Additionally, if the operator continues to defy that order, councils will be empowered to disconnect utilities to the premises.
The government says the reform is aimed squarely at shutting down “factories of hate”—places that operate unlawfully while promoting hatred, intimidation or division within the community.
“This is about protecting social cohesion, keeping communities safe and upholding the values that unite us as Australians,” Minns said in a statement.
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