Sydney, Australia - Christian pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot yesterday vowed to go to jail rather than paying $68,690 for public apologies for vilifying Muslims.
Mr Nalliah called Victoria's religious vilification law "sharia (Islamic) law by stealth", "a foul law" and invalid, while Mr Scot said: "You don't compromise truth for fear of jail."
Judge Michael Higgins, of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, yesterday ordered Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries, Mr Scot and Mr Nalliah to publish apologies for comments made at a Melbourne seminar in March 2002, and in a newsletter and website article.
Judge Higgins said the pastors were otherwise of good character, but their passionate religious beliefs caused them to transgress the law. He ordered them to publish apologies on their website, in their newsletter and in four advertisements in Melbourne newspapers and to promise not to repeat the vilification anywhere in Australia. But this order could be defied as early as Monday, when Mr Scot begins a two-week seminar on Islam in Brisbane.
In December, in the first case under Victoria's controversial Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, Judge Higgins upheld a complaint from the Islamic Council of Victoria that Muslims were vilified in a seminar, newsletter and website article. These suggested that the Koran promoted killing and looting, that Muslims wanted to take over Australia and terrorists were true Muslims.
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Judge Higgins said financial compensation would not be appropriate in yesterday's case, but a public apology would. He ordered Catch the Fire and the pastors to insert the same advertisement - using words set by the tribunal and of specified size - in The Age and Herald Sun on two Saturdays and Mondays before August 31. (This would cost $25,200 in The Age and $43,490 in the Herald Sun.)
Mr Scot, who did not appear yesterday, said his teaching was taken from the Koran and much of his Brisbane seminar would be the same as the 2002 seminar that led to the complaint. "I told the judge earlier, you haven't provided me with a new Koran with the illegal verses removed, so I have to use the same Koran. He doesn't say which parts I quoted are illegal, he is asking a very vague thing," Mr Scot said.
He said he would defy the tribunal, even if it meant jail.
"You don't compromise truth for fear of jail. If God will save Australia by us being in jail, that's wonderful."
Outside the tribunal, Mr Nalliah said he could not surrender "freedom of speech to a law which is sharia law by stealth". "We will not bow down to pressure, and if it means we go to prison we will go to prison," he said.
Mr Nalliah, who is about to campaign in England against a proposed vilification law there, said it was surprising that the Islamic Council had not complained about two Sydney Muslim leaders who supported rape and jihad. "Didn't they vilify Muslims, if Muslims don't believe that?"
The pastors' lawyers have already appealed against the verdict to the Supreme Court, claiming that the act is unconstitutional and that Judge Higgins made errors and showed "irredeemable bias". The case will be heard next month.
Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Waleed Aly said the remedies were light, but the council was satisfied.
"This is not about punishing anyone or retribution or financial gain. The statement is clearly not an apology, and they are asked to give an undertaking not to do something that is illegal anyway," he said.