Fundamentalist group back under scrutiny

ABC Online
PM - Friday, 6 July , 2007 18:14:00
Reporter: Paula Kruger
MARK COLVIN: The fundamentalist Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir is back under the Federal Government's microscope again after a British defector from the group warned of its activities in Australia.

Hizb ut-Tahrir members are alleged to have associated with one of the men arrested over the failed London bombing.

Two years ago the Government decided not to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia, but left open the option of doing so in future.

And today, security analysts and Australian Muslim leaders have been saying that proscribing Hizb ut-Tahrir could actually encourage radicalism by forcing it underground.

Paula Kruger reports.

PAULA KRUGER: The Federal Government first considered banning the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir two years ago when some European governments started outlawing similar organisations.

It was part of the security shake-up that came after the London suicide bombings.

The Australian investigations then, and since, have found the organisation has not broken the law.

As spokesman for the group Wassim Doureihi explained to PM two years ago, his is a non-violent organisation.

WASSIM DOUREIHI: We have a record. The party was established since 1653 and we've been working on some of the most horrendous conditions, where some of our members have been boiled to death, and that has not in any way altered the means by which we seek to achieve our aims. We continue to work with the people.

PAULA KRUGER: But devout Muslim and former member of a British cell of Hizb ut-Tahrir Ed Husain last night told Lateline a different story.

ED HUSAIN: That organisation functions in Australia and its leadership takes its call and its literature from the London-based Hizb ut-Tahrir. So that's also a threat in the making that I think your policy-makers and people in the media need to identify and educate the wider Australian population about.

PAULA KRUGER: The federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has again asked the security organisation to look into the organisation.

PHILLIP RUDDOCK: In the light of what you and I saw last night on Lateline, I've requested that those further matters be examined by them. But it is a test which is not embarked upon lightly, it's one in which I must be satisfied on advice that the organisation is directly or indirectly engaged in preparing, planning or assisting or fostering a terrorist act or advocating it.

PAULA KRUGER: Jacob Townsend is a research analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and recently co-authored a paper the Hizb ut-Tahrir presence in Australia.

He suggests there's no easy way for authorities to deal with the group.

JACOB TOWNSEND: The biggest risk from Hizb ut-Tahrir is if, and I say 'if', it acts as a conveyor belt for extremism, moving people from radicalisation and towards violence ideologies. There is only suggestive evidence, not conclusive evidence that around the world Hizb ut-Tahrir itself has ever been implicated in violence. So, we have to be careful in the sense that on the basis of evidence, 'no', Hizb ut-Tahrir does not authorise or organise violence.

PAULA KRUGER: Is that the reason why it's so difficult for governments around the world to outlaw this organisation?

JACOB TOWNSEND: Yes. I mean, in Australia for example, I believe some people are calling for it to be banned when it had its conference earlier in the year in Sydney, the Australian branch, I mean, legally it's a religious study group, essentially.

PAULA KRUGER: Would it be dangerous to actually outlaw this organisation? Does it just invigorate it in some way?

JACOB TOWNSEND: From my own experience of watching Hizb ut-Tahrir grow substantially in some of the central Asian republics, I would say there that outlawing it has definitely backfired.

PAULA KRUGER: It seems Australian authorities like their UK counterparts only have the option of monitoring organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir.

And close monitoring of these groups is an approach that has the support of Ikebal Patel, the President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

IKEBAL PATEL: Monitoring radical organisations would probably be a better way to doing it then to outlawing because if you outlaw certain organisations then they'll just go underground which would really be a much worse outcome.

But at the same time, I have to emphasise that you have to really look at the core reasons why whether it's organisations or individuals are being radicalised. Unless we do that, we, five years later I'm sure we'll be talking about the same issues again and there'll be equally devastating bombings and traps and terrorism events, which will be of no benefit to anybody.

MARK COLVIN: President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Ikebal Patel ending that report by Paula Kruger.