Thoughts on Freedom

In this weekends election the Labor Party in the seat of Gympie had no official candidate, owing to his resignation when a blog comment he made in late 2006 in support of free speech for Sydney Muslim cleric Sheik Hilaly. The comments by Hilaly were at the time highly controversial, and in the wake of the Sydney cases of pack rape by a Lebanese gang, showed about the same level of PR skills as the AIG bonus deals. At least the AIG people demonstrated the skills required to get the US government to hand them $250 billion, which is no small achievement.

 While the statements by Sheik Hilaly were pretty much over the top, especially given the context of the times, he was not advocating violence against women nor in my opinion attempting to inflame the situation. He struck me as out of touch with reality, probably through advancing age.

 Australia has a long history of good relations with its Islamic community going back to the early 19^th century, and it should remain this way.

 The local paper “The Gympie Times” reported:

Labor candidate, Daniel Tabone chose to walk the plank at the weekend (and he insists he was not pushed) over his support for the free speech rights of the Sydney Muslim cleric who compared some scantily clad women to “uncovered meat”. Read more »