How the ABC gave a platform to Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir as SBS did soft story on anti-Semite

The ABC gave a platform to the leader of now-banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir despite knowing his extremist views.

The national broadcaster’s former opinion site, The Drum, published eight comment pieces by Uthman Badar between October 2010 and April 2012 as the spokesman for the anti-Semitic hate group that Parliament this week voted to ban.

Mr Badar was given the space to write opinion pieces justifying the subjugation of women in society, blaming the West for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and suggesting Muslims want to live under hardline Islamic laws, despite Hizb ut-Tahrir at that time already being illegal in a range of Muslim nations, including Bangladesh, Pakistan and Jordan, along with Germany.

“Uthman Badar is the media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, a global Islamic political party working in over 40 countries, via exclusively intellectual and political means, to re-establish the Caliphate in the Muslim World,” his biography on The Drum website said.

“He is a student of the Islamic sciences and is completing a PhD in Economics at the University of Western Sydney.”

In March 2012, Mr Badar was given space to defend Muslim law giving sons double the inheritance of daughters and attack News Corp for covering a case in the ACT Supreme Court.

“As for the reason why male children inherit double the share of female children, this has nothing to do with the worth ascribed to either gender,” he said.

“The female has no continual financial responsibilities as a child, sister, wife or mother; these responsibilities are always on the men of the family.

“The husband is obligated to cover the expenses of his wife’s basic needs of food, clothing and shelter, as well as to cover the expenses of their children’s upbringing.”

Mr Badar also claimed in May 2011 that Western governments had committed more terrorist acts than al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, following his death at the hands of US Navy SEALs when Barack Obama was American president.

“Western Governments have committed far greater acts of terrorism than any individual,” he said.

“The issue is not the person of bin Laden but the context of his struggle being a struggle of resistance against Western imperialism in the Muslim World — a resistance which Muslims globally relate to.”

Another opinion piece in February 2011 — written after the downfall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak — suggested Egyptians wanted to live under Islamist rule.

He hailed the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian-born political movement to revive an Islamic Caliphate.

“All those who are active on the grassroots level, as we are, know that the people en masse are in favour of change on the basis of Islam,” Mr Badar said.

“That the Muslim Brotherhood is the largest opposition group in Egypt, though representing only one strand of Islamic political activism, is proof of this.”

Mr Badar’s more extreme views would surface in later years when he told a Bankstown forum in south-west Sydney that ex-Muslims deserved to be killed.

“As such in Islam, is clear that apostates do attract capital punishment and we don’t shy away from that, we don’t shy away from saying that,” he told an audience at Bankstown’s Bryan Brown Theatre and Function Centre in March 2017.

Despite that, Mr Badar’s inflammatory opinion pieces have continued to be published on the ABC website. Former ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie axed The Drum website in July 2016 but its contents remain online.

An ABC spokeswoman told The Nightly the content was being reviewed.

“We can’t comment on editorial decisions that were made 14 to 16 years ago,” she said.

But Mr Badar was hardly the only extremist getting soft coverage with a taxpayer-funded broadcaster.

Abdulghani Albaf, an anti-Semitic Islamist preacher with the hardline Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah Association, featured in a soft SBS interview in 2016 shortly after moving to Young in southern NSW.

“Praying in a mosque as a Muslim is a lot better,” he told journalist Brooke Boney.

“It’s highly recommended. Working in Sydney, living in Sydney, I never had time to do things like that. So obviously now that I’m here, we have a lot more time on our hands.

“It’s a much more relaxed lifestyle and atmosphere, so I’ve got time to pray at the mosque at least five times a day. Whereas in Sydney I was flat out trying to get there once a week.”

The sheikh has since become the controversial principal of New Madinah College, who has continued to post anti-Semitic messages on social media, including one in April 2024 that suggested supporters of Israel have no morals.

“Zionists and all who support Zionism simply have no moral compass whatsoever,” he said.

Another post from January 2024 said: “Israel has no right to defend itself in a country it illegally occupies. Free Palestine now. Stop the genocide.”

He also suggested Israel deserved the October 7 terrorist attack that saw 1200 Israelis killed.

“For those who don’t know, it all started in 1948, not on October 7th, 2023.”

Weeks after the Hamas-led terrorist attack, he told his followers Israelis were “Zionist terrorists” and posted an image of a Palestinian flag over a map of Israel calling for the destruction of Israel.

“A thief never becomes an owner. May Allah rid us of the illegal occupation. May Allah destroy the oppressive Zionist regime.”

On Christmas Eve last year, NSW Acting Education Minister Courtney Houssos announced the State’s Education Standards Authority would be given 28 days to determine if Mr Albaf was a fit and proper person to run a school.