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8th November 2003
Council denies support for Taliban
By Barney Zwartz
Religious Affairs Reporter
November 8, 2003
source: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/07/1068013395282.html

The Islamic Council of Victoria funded Afghan fundamentalists in the 1990s, the tribunal hearing Victoria's first religious hate case was told yesterday.

Council president Yasser Soliman said the council gave no support to the mujahideen after September 11 (2001) and never had contact with the Taliban.

He told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal it was not true that the council wanted nothing to do with Muslim extremists. "We want to be part of the solution, which means we have to have something to do with extremists," he said.

The council has complained that Catch the Fire Ministries, Pastor Danny Nalliah and speaker Daniel Scot vilified Muslims at a seminar in March last year.

Mr Soliman denied a suggestion by Catch the Fire barrister David Perkins that the council was still supporting the Afghan mujahideen movement.

For the council, Brind Woinarski, QC, objected that these were inflammatory matters, irrelevant to the complaint, raised to victimise his clients.

Mr Perkins said it was in the public interest to know the extent of Australian funding of extremists in other countries.

He said it related to the topic of jihad, which was the main topic of the seminar. "The question of what the... mujahideen are involved in, and are being assisted in by the ICV, is jihad."

Judge Michael Higgins cleared the court to hear further argument and reserved his decision on whether to allow this line of questioning. The hearing resumes on December 11.

Outside the court, Islamic Council member Bilal Cleland said the council began sending money to the mujahideen in 1989 at the height of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

He said after the Russians left, civil war broke out. In 1995, after a bloody battle in Kabul, the Muslim world stopped sending aid because Muslims were fighting Muslims in the country.

Sums were not large - $7000 in 1989 - and other organisations such as Care Australia provided aid at this time, Mr Cleland said. "We never supported the Taliban because they were extremist and oppressive. We certainly have not funded any extremist organisation we are aware of."