Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir called for the death of ex-Muslims in Sydney in 2017 — why they weren’t banned

Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has continued to operate in Australia almost a decade after declaring in Sydney that ex-Muslims should be killed for renouncing their religion.

The Federal Government is recalling Parliament next week to introduce legislation to ban the likes of Hizb ut-Tahrir and the National Socialist Network, a neo-nazi group, because existing laws stop them from being added to the list of banned terrorist organisations.

This is despite them being banned in the UK, Germany and India, along with Muslim-majority nations including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Politicians in March 2017 expressed outrage after Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar confirmed the group’s view on apostates, or those who leave Islam.

“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 on a Saturday night.

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Freelance journalist Alison Bevege had asked him about article 7c of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s global draft constitution which states: “Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam are to be executed according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam.”

Mr Badar had described opposition to the idea of executing ex-Muslims as a Western plot.

“The ruling of apostasy in Islam is clear, again that’s one of the things the West doesn’t like so it seeks to change,” he said.

“The constitution is based on Islamic sources and the whole thing covers different aspects of the Islamic or the Sharia law.”

But former Liberal MP Michael Keenan, who as Federal justice minister at the time referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police, struggled to recall the event or offer a view on banning Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“There’s nothing that I can add without sort of jogging my memory. It’s too far back,” he told The Nightly.

This was despite him declaring at the time, via a spokeswoman, that “language that incites or advocates violence is not freedom of speech”.

Mr Badar’s comments were made at premises owned and run by Canterbury-Bankstown Council, which issued a “cease use” notice to the Al Madina Dawah Centre, where Wissam Haddad had delivered sermons describing Jews as “treacherous” and “vile” people in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. The controversial prayer hall, labelled a “hate factory” by critics, today announced its permanent closure.

Hizb ut-Tahrir isn’t on the list of terrorist organisations in Australia, with the 31 entities including Hamas, that attacked Israel in 2023, and Al-Qa’ida. That’s because Hizb ut-Tahrir doesn’t directly plan, finance or carry out terrorist attacks.

Former attorney-general Philip Ruddock said legal advice, when he was Australia’s chief legal officer during the 2000s, suggested they didn’t meet the threshold to be banned.

“All I remember is that we looked at that question. We had advice and we were of the view that the circumstances that were needed to satisfy ourselves that it should be banned were not met,” he told The Nightly.

Wassim Doureihi, another Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman in Australia, this week released a Facebook video suggesting new hate laws targeting them were about appeasing the Jewish lobby, with footage of former foreign minister Bob Carr making a comment about campaign donations.

“The new hate laws are designed solely to shield the Zionist entity from criticism,” he said.

Hizb ut-Tahrir released another statement on Wednesday denying a link between Islam and the massacre, and seizing on Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett, on December 16, saying the killings were “the alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves with a terrorist organisation, not a religion”.

“Zionist advocates are determined to lay blame for Bondi at the feet of Islam, despite the AFP Commissioner Kristy Barrett insisting Bondi was not motivated by religion nor were the perpetrators part of an Islamist inspired network,” it said, misspelling her name.