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Aus press slam Muslim cleric
27/10/2006 07:45 - (SA)
Sydney - Outraged Australian media attacked the country's top Islamic cleric on Friday as "heartless" and "ignorant" for comparing scantily-clad women without headscarves to "uncovered meat".
In the growing firestorm following Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali's controversial comments that immodestly dressed women invited sexual attack, press condemned the Egyptian-born cleric's "heartless outburst" for further traumatising rape victims by saying they had themselves to to blame.
The Mufti of Australia's "sick rape remarks can't be forgiven", The Daily Telegraph newspaper said, following the cleric's plea for forgiveness on Thursday, in which he insisted he was misinterpreted.
"More worrying still was the Sheik's oblique reference to the notorious Sydney gang rapes involving Muslim youth in 2000," one editorial read.
"Sheik Hilali has forfeited the right to lead Australia's Muslims", The Australian newspaper wrote, shortly before Muslim leaders suspended the Sheik from duties for two to three months.
While The Australian said the contents of Hilali's Ramadan sermon were "beyond the pale of acceptable speech and demonstrate that there are limits to how tolerant a society can be", it approved of the Muslim community's rush to distance themselves from their leader's inflamatory remarks.
"Hearteningly and with few exceptions, Australia's Muslims seem to agree that Sheik Hilali's comments were vile."
Although conceding that the cleric's remarks were published out of their original language and context, the Sydney Morning Herald said the incident exposed a wider problem with Muslim men's attitudes to women.
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