tv program transcript - what do you think?

TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1411904.htm

Broadcast: 11/07/2005

Muslims prepare for backlash
Reporter: Tony Jones


TONY JONES: Well, despite warnings from figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury not to make Muslims scapegoats for the London bombings, it seems a backlash has begun. In New Zealand, mosques have been targeted and police in some Australian capital cities have also stepped up security. To discuss this and what exactly it is that radicalises young Muslims and attracts them to the teaching of militants, we're joined in our Melbourne studio by Sheikh Mohammed Omran. He is the iman of a Melbourne mosque and head of the al-Sunnah Wal-Jamaah association, which I think is fair to say is a fundamentalist Islamic organisation. Reda Hassaine is a journalist who fled Islamist terror in Algeria and ended up as an informer on Islamic militants for French intelligence, the British Special Branch and M-I5. He's in our London studio. Thanks to both of you for joining us. Sheikh Omran, after the news today from New Zealand, are you at all worried there will be a backlash against Australian Muslims?

SHEIKH MOHAMMED OMRAN, ISLAMIC CLERIC: Oh, it could be. I'm really not that worried because Australian learn from their past experience how to take the media news. Until today, even the Prime Minister of Britain didn't accuse anyone yet. But yet the media of Britain or Australia or New Zealand or any other countries, they put it immediately to the Muslim insurgents or whatever they call it or al-Qaeda or something like that. But anyhow, as an Australian and a Muslim too, I don't have any fear of anyone in Australia to do any stupid act against their own people.

TONY JONES: Sheikh Omran, staying with you for a moment - do you accept what the British Government, our own government and virtually all expert commentators are saying, that these London bombings at the very least bear the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack?

MOHAMMED OMRAN: I can't say anything about that. I'm not the expert to say it is or it is not, but until now, they didn't accuse anyone, and this is exploration and we cannot take only assumption from someone, especially from the media, to accuse someone, and the people learned from the bust that they wait until the results come up.

TONY JONES: But it is reported, for example, that leading Islamic clerics and scholars in Britain appear to have made that same assumption as their government, and some of them in fact are preparing a Fatwah against those who planned and carried out the London bombings. Now, would you ever consider, for example, issuing a Fatwah against Islamic terrorists?

MOHAMMED OMRAN: First, issuing a Fatwah doesn't mean that who did that were the Muslims. Issuing the Fatwah is explaining our stand, as in Britain or Australia or anywhere else, against these attacks, and these civilian innocents go on between these two political issues.

TONY JONES: Let me interrupt you there, Sheikh Omran and bring in Reda Hassain at this point. Now, do you believe the London bombings were the work of Islamic extremists? Let's put that question straight to you.

REDA HASSAINE, JOURNALIST AND ISLAMIC EXPERT: I mean, for the moment, I think it is - there is some ingredients which can say that it is the mark of al-Qaeda, but up to now, what we can say is only speculation because there is no evidence yet about it.

MOHAMMED OMRAN: Absolutely.

TONY JONES: Why do you think so many people in Britain and around the world, Reda Hassaine, have sprung to the conclusion that this is very likely to be an al-Qaeda operation? Is it simply because there are similarities at so many points with the Madrid bombings, for example, or is it something more?

REDA HASSAINE: There is so many point, like you said, about Madrid bombing, and there is another thing, in which people now are accusing Britain because they are participating in the war in Iraq, which led these people to carry out this attack, but it's still only speculation. On the other way, you have to understand that the problem of Iraq did start only in 2003, so the problem about the threat of terrorism were alive well before these kind of studies. So up to now, I mean, we cannot say anything to be certain about it, and I think we have to wait the first clue, then we have to point who done it, and people can say it is British Muslim or they may be something else. Yes, we know there is thousands of people have been recruited here in London and have been sent to Afghanistan to learn how to make bombs, how to kill, how to wage war and to do jihad, and they come back here in Britain and they are now sleepers, we can say, but up to now, I mean, we have no doubt. When you see the Chief of the Metropolitan Police saying he is certain it is British born, I can't agree with him, because we have to wait for the evidence first.

TONY JONES: Alright. Can I ask you this, because I understand that for some years, you effectively infiltrated some of the more extreme mosques in London. You say there may be thousands of people who've been indoctrinated, who've gone to Afghanistan and actually learned how to make bombs, etc., etc. How do young men born in Britain become indoctrinated to do something like that?

REDA HASSAINE: I mean, the problem here in London, you see some youngsters which can be recruited in schools, in college, in universities, and some others who are just looking for the way of Islam, and when they go to a mosque in which the cleric is completely radical and he want to wage a war against the West, they will promise them a place in paradise, so some people will be very, very happy to go to paradise instead of living 60 or 70 years and they don't know what to do. So it is very, very easy to recruit some people. For example - I will give you just my own example - if I wasn't aware about it because I left my country in 1994, and when I left my country these terrorists started to kill us - I mean, we are not Christian but we are Muslim, too, and they believe that they are more Muslim than us. That is the biggest mistake they are doing. So now, the West, because it's aware that it is not Algerian problem or another problem because they started to wage attack in America, it's very, very difficult for them to understand the way, and to fight this kind it of terror is not about fighting them with weapons or something like that, because they are using an ideology, these kind of people, and the ideology have to be fought - you need to have a fight with another ideology.

TONY JONES: Sheikh Omran, let me ask you this: do you know of young men in Australia who are so angry with what they perceive to be injustice in this world that they would be prepared to give up their own lives to join a jihad against the West?

MOHAMMED OMRAN: First, in addition of what Hassaine said, I would say to live or die, this is not in your hand, anyhow, to live 60 years or to live one day. The Muslim and anyone else knows that this is something not in their control. So to go to learn about, let's say, jihad, as he said, doesn't mean you have become a radical and you have become a person to come back home and destroy your country or something like that. I absolutely abuse this opinion 100 per cent. Again, here in Australia, we have - in every country and in every community, we have people, they are radical in their views, but doesn't mean they carry their thoughts out in action. As we saw so many kids in the street, they make trouble with drugs, with police, with this, with that. This is what we have to look at. As an Australian in general, all the government in particular, we should look at these problems and study it. As Hassaine said, this is an ideological matter. Cannot be chased by police or something like that. This has to be: sit and learn about it and communicate with the people who have these views and teach them, "This is not the right way to handle your unjust matter if you feel you are dealt with unjust", but to bring it out to the community and solve it in a proper manner.

TONY JONES: Sheikh Omran, could I just interrupt you there, because you seem to be suggesting that part of the responsibility must obviously lie with Islamic clerics such as yourself. Do you believe it is now your responsibility, for example, to convince young Australian Muslims that Osama bin Laden is an evil man and that the philosophy of al-Qaeda is a perversion of Islam?

MOHAMMED OMRAN: Look, as I said, the whole community has to cooperate on these matters. Yes, it is part of my business and part of my duties to teach my people how to understand Islam in a proper way and how to understand the outside world, as well as to understand their own society. This cannot be done without the support of the government and the support of the media and the support of my people too.

TONY JONES: Can I interrupt you, though, because I asked you a specific question there about Osama bin Laden, and I asked it specifically because you have actually said in the past that Osama bin Laden is a very great man for some of his actions.

MOHAMMED OMRAN: This is as I said. When you look at the man from some part of his life, yes, he is. From another part, well, again, what action we are talking about? I dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden. Again, I don't believe that even September 11 - from the beginning, I don't believe that it has done by any Muslim at all, or any other activities. London, as I said just a few seconds ago, never done yet - no-one proven that any Muslim has a hand in it. But ...

TONY JONES: But given the overwhelming body of evidence suggesting - not suggesting, in fact, proving that Osama bin Laden was responsible for September 11, are you saying that you tell young Muslims in your care that this never happened?

MOHAMMED OMRAN: I don't say it never happened. I would say...

TONY JONES: That he wasn't responsible, that al-Qaeda wasn't responsible?

MOHAMMED OMRAN: This has happened in evil hands for an evil action, and first target was the Muslims for that. How could I believe any Muslim could think to hurt his own religion by doing an evil act like this? This is why, from this perspective, I believe all these evil actions, which bring nothing but harm to the Muslims in particular and people who support Muslims, support their communities in general, like the Londonese people, who went out and marched in millions to support our cause in Palestine and in Iraq and all these - and we go back to pay them by bombing them? It's impossible to happen by a Muslim who has a Muslim heart at least. Maybe these people...

TONY JONES: Sheikh Omran, we're nearly out of time. I'm going to go back to Reda Hassaine, and I just want to get your response to what you've just heard there and also your impression about where this could go, because I know you actually spent a good deal of your life infiltrated into mosques, finding out the mindset of Islamic clerics who do tell their pupils to go and fight jihad.

REDA HASSAINE: To be honest, for me, I don't know personally Osama bin Laden or something - I don't, because he is far away from my own land. But for me there is another Osama bin Laden here in London. He is known as Abu Qatada. He is the one who can create, who can recruit and brainwash people to do what he call jihad. He used to say to people that paradise is held swords, and to get into it, you have to use one of the swords. That means you have to kill. And you have to remember that Abu Qatada, before he joined al-Qaeda, he used to be the spiritual leader of the GIA and then the GSBC, Algerian. He made Fatwah for them to allow them to kill women, to kill kids, to kill old people, to kill journalists and all this kind of stuff. This guy, for me, he is a murderer, and he should be put on trial. We are looking for him. If you have to be extradited to another country in which it is a Muslim country and then you will see which kind of person he is, because he teach only hate.

TONY JONES: I just have to let Sheikh Omran respond to that, if I can, because I know that Abu Qatada is in fact a friend of yours.

MOHAMMED OMRAN: (Laughs). Ahh...yes, he is, or he was. I never heard him doing or saying something like that. In fact, in general, and in Australia in particular, they have this understanding, and their Fatwah - even before this - yes, you mentioned they made this Fatwah, but it is a connected matter, in our constitution, that something like that is not allowed in our land. There is a big difference between talking about jihad and talking about swords. Of course, every country has its military army and actions, and people learn how to use the sword or to use the gun. So there is no harm in talking about that, but the harm is how to use that and where to use it and when to use it. But we don't say it's harm to talk about military. Just a few minutes ago, you been talking to the opposition secretary of...

TONY JONES: Defence.

MOHAMMED OMRAN: Defence or something, and you talk about military and John Howard going to send troops here, and this is what we are talking about here. We are talking about the sword and what the sword has to be used for. It's not a horrible thing to talk about it. Is the horrible how to use it and when to use it and for whom to use it. This is what the terribleness about it.

TONY JONES: On that intriguing note we'll have to leave you. I'm afraid we are out of time. Sheikh Mohammed Omran in Melbourne and Reda Hassaine in London, thanks to both of you for joining us.

MOHAMMED OMRAN: You're most welcome.

REDA HASSAINE: You're welcome.