VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, June 23, 2005: Ever since the state of Victoria in Australia passed the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act in early 2002, the outcome has become controversial, according to this report from Crosswalk.com, a Christian news agency.
Premier Bob Carr of New South Wales, a neighboring state, says, “Religious vilification laws are difficult because determining what is or is not a religious belief is difficult. It is subjective. Religious vilification laws can undermine the very freedom they seek to protect — freedom of thought, conscience and belief.”
Victoria has received a huge reaction nationally and internationally as a result of the new law. The case causing all the controversy is explained in this news release, “Two evangelical pastors in Australia convicted of vilifying Muslims say they will go to prison rather than obey a judge’s order to apologize. A tribunal judge in the state of Victoria on Wednesday instructed Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot to apologize for their comments by publishing a prescribed statement in newspapers and on the website of Nalliah’s ministry, Catch the Fire. They would also have to promise never to repeat them — or any other comments which would have the same or similar effect — anywhere in Australia or on the Internet.”
Judge Michael Higgins of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), a body that operates like a normal court of law, says, “Scot, a Pakistan-born pastor who addressed the seminar, had done so in a way which is essentially hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their God, Allah, the prophet Mohammed and in general Muslim religious beliefs and practises. The offending statement included the view that the Koran promotes violence and killing; that Muslims lie; and that Muslims intend to take over Australia and declare it an Islamic State. An article by Nalliah in a Catch the Fire newsletter contained statements likely to incite a feeling of hatred towards Muslims, including the claim that Muslim refugees were being granted visas to Australia while Christians who suffer persecution in Islamic nations were refused refugee visas.”
The case against Nalliah and Scot resulted when the state’s Islamic Council lodged a complaint. It has taken twenty months to finalize and has other countries considering the outcome of the law. The article explains, “At one point is 2003, the Australian Embassy in Washington was flooded with letters from concerned Americans, and was hard pressed to explain that the case was being heard by a court-like tribunal operating under a law passed by one state’s Labor government, not Australia’s federal government. In Britain, opponents of a religious hatred bill currently under consideration have cited the Australian episode in their campaign against the legislation.”