Hate preacher Wissam Haddad ordered not to have corrective notices 'deliberately buried' on social media after breaking law

Sky News AU

5 days ago

Jihadi preacher Wissam Haddad has been ordered on Thursday to 'pin' corrective notices acknowledging he had broken discrimination law at the top of his social media accounts.
Earlier this month the Federal Court found the Sydney-based Islamic cleric breached 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act after a Jewish organisation sought legal action, citing inaction by Australia's 'responsible authorities'.
Mr Haddad or speakers at his Al Madine Dawah Centre called Jewish people the descendants of 'pigs and monkeys' who would drown if people spat on Israel.
According to The Australian, Mr Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, had attempted to evade the full extent of the court's ruling by arguing he should not be required to pin posts admitting fault online.
Justice Angus Stewart on Thursday accepted expert advice that such posts should be held at the top of Mr Haddad's profile so they could not be 'deliberately buried' underneath other social media posts.
'In short, the 'pinning' and 'featuring' of the posts will prevent them from disappearing from view in a short period of time, and it will prevent them from being deliberately buried by way of successive further posts,' Justice Stewart said.
'I do not regard it as disproportionate to the nature and extent of the wrong committed to require redress of that nature.'
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said the court order was an 'essential part of counteracting the harm' his antisemitic speeches caused.
'We welcome the Federal Court's further orders requiring Mr Haddad and the Al Madinah Dawah Centre to publish a Corrective Notice on their social media pages advising viewers of the findings of unlawful conduct and orders made against them by the court, and requiring the notice to be featured and pinned on those pages,' Mr Wertheim said.
'We see this as an essential part of counteracting the harm that was caused by their online promotion and reproduction of Haddad's antisemitic speeches.'
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) won its case against Mr Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, after Justice Angus Stewart found his series of lectures called 'The Jews of Al Madina' contained remarks which were 'reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate' Australian Jews.
'They make perverse generalisations against Jewish people as a group,' he said.
'The imputations include age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist and antisemitic … Jews in Australia in November 2023, and thereafter, would experience them to be harassing and intimidating.'
The Islamic cleric was ordered to have three of his speeches removed from social media and to cover ECAJ's legal fees.