Farrokh Sekaleshfar at the Imam Husian Islamic Centre in Earlwood, Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion.
An Islamic cleric who has sparked outrage by saying death is a compassionate sentence for homosexuality and we should “get rid of them now” is in Australia lecturing at a Muslim centre.
British-born Farrokh Sekaleshfar arrived last Tuesday as a guest of the Imam Husain Islamic Centre in Earlwood, in inner-western Sydney. He is acting as a guest speaker for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
At a lecture at the University of Michigan in 2013, when asked about homosexuality he said: “Death is the sentence. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence. We have to have that compassion for people. With homosexuals, it’s the same. Out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”
A video of that speech surfaced in March when Sheik Sekaleshfar spoke at the Husseini Islamic Center outside Orlando on “How to deal with the phenomenon of homosexuality”.
Yesterday he told The Australian he stood by the comments but claimed they had been taken out of the “academic and theoretical” context they were given in.
“I said in Islam this is the ruling ... we believe homosexuality, like adultery and a long list of other things, they are sins … it is just one of them,” he said. “Never do I incite violence against them. I say don’t hate the actual sinner, hate the act … compassion is the first cause of action.”
He said the death penalty for homosexuality would never be an issue for countries such as Australia. “But in a country where there is a democratic mandate that people want Islam to rule … then the sentence isn’t to kill homosexuals, it’s only when homosexuals, or anyone else, commits anal copulation in public. Which homosexual has ever done such a thing? It happens behind closed doors and the judiciary has no jurisdiction behind closed doors.”
Sheik Sekaleshfar, a qualified doctor from Manchester who first came to Australia in 2014 at the invitation of the University of Western Sydney to speak on organ donation, said in hindsight he should not have mentioned it but it was important for Islam not to shy from issues. “Just because you find something uncomfortable as a Muslim, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about it — this is law according to Islam,” he said.
He said he could understand why people would be outraged by his remarks. “When the judiciary wants to commit the death sentence, they shouldn’t do it for the sake of killing the person,” he said. “Their intention should be, look this person is a sinner ... by killing him he will no longer sin and therefore we are saving him in the hereafter, that’s what I mean by it’s the compassionate thing to do.”
Sheik Sekaleshfar said he unreservedly condemned the actions of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen.
“He was an animal, it was totally barbaric, I’m totally against it. These are sick, violent people who use ideologies ... as a means to satiate their sick need,” he said.
He said he had had no contact with Mateen before leaving Orlando in early April and described as “implausible” the notion his words could be misconstrued as a call to arms.
“It’s implausible he (Mateen) would even see that lecture — and it’s implausible that he would even listen to the likes of me, a Shia cleric,” he said.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s office said: “The government does not condone preaching that may incite violence or hatred.”
