New South Wales Multiculturalism Minister Natalie Ward is pressing her federal counterpart to ban Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir after a video surfaced of one of its rallies where protestors shouted in Arabic “Destroy the Jews!” and “O Allah, give us the necks of those evildoers!”
In October, New South Wales Shadow Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism Walt Secord called on Ward, the state government and law enforcement to take “immediate action,” the Australian Jewish News reported.
In response, Ward wrote that she had spoken to her federal counterpart and urged him to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
On Friday, New South Wales Minister for Counter-terrorism Anthony Roberts said in parliament: “There’s no tolerance for this incitement of violence.”
He added that “symbols of hatred and anti-Semitism are unacceptable anywhere in our community.”
New South Wales police are reportedly investigating the video, taken at a May 2021 rally and released by MEMRI, and a second Hizb ut-Tahri video that surfaced in 2020, with the possibility that the videos will be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions using the state’s laws against incitement.
In February 2021, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) argued in a document submitted to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that if Hizb ut-Tahrir cannot be proscribed as a terror group using current laws, then the government should put forward amended legislation to specifically prohibit “incitement or glorification of violence” against religious groups.
“This would assist in providing a legal remedy for groups and individuals that seek to harm Australians but fall short of the legislative threshold for proscription,” AIJAC said in their submission.