Sydney, Australia - A second Muslim cleric in Australia has stepped into a bitter dispute over attitudes to women and rape, charging that anti-Islamic bias ensured Muslim rapists got tougher sentences than other men.
Sheik Mohammed Omran publicly defended a sermon in which he said Muslims were dealt with more harshly than other sex offenders such as "bikies" belonging to motorcycle gangs or "football stars".
The sermon was delivered in his Melbourne mosque last Friday, the day after a storm erupted over a top cleric's description of women without Islamic headscarves as "uncovered meat" inviting sexual attack.
Those remarks were made by the Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali, who collapsed and was rushed to hospital Monday after a firestorm of criticism and relentless pressure for his resignation.
Both clerics referred in their sermons to heavy sentences meted out to a group of young Muslim men for a series of notorious gang rapes in Sydney six years ago.
One of the men received a 55-year jail sentence, which was later reduced on appeal.
"They make a big fuss about these kids because one of them, his name is Mohamed," Omran said in his sermon, according to a report in The Australian daily Tuesday. "Even if you kill someone, you don't go for 60 years."
In an interview later with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Omran defended his remarks.
"What I said in the sermon, I say it here and I'll say it wherever I am," Omran said.
"We are part of the Australian society and, as an Australian -- forget what I am, a cleric or not a cleric, I am an Australian -- I have a view and I am free to tell the people about my view."
Omran charged that judges lacked consistency in sentencing, saying that otherwise similar sentences should be passed on "the priest who rape(s) a child under his care, or the teacher who (has) a sexual relation with his student".
He also accused the media and the government of overreacting to crimes committed by Muslims. Prime Minister John Howard has led the storm of criticism of the mufti's remarks about "uncovered meat".
Hilali remained in hospital Tuesday after he issued a statement saying he would take indefinite leave from preaching.
This was widely interpreted as meaning that the Egyptian-born cleric would soon resign, but his 25-year-old daughter Asma said he would not quit.
"He's been always strong, strong tall and defiant, and none of this will shake him and bring him down," she told reporters after visiting him in hospital.
She said her father has been most hurt by the people in the Muslim community who had attacked him and called for his resignation.
"He has had bypass surgery, he's got blood pressure (problems) and asthma," said friend and spokesman Keysar Trad, who also visited the mufti, saying the stress he had been under had worsened his health.
Hilali apologised in his statement for any offence caused by his comments and described women as "the cherished pearls, the dearest thing in the world".
But the government has kept up the pressure on Australia's 300,000-strong Muslim community to distance itself from the mufti, saying he had a history of making inflammatory comments.
"You go right through the decade, the sheik has been anti-semitic, he has supported jihadists, he has made statements that are absolutely offensive to women, such as the uncovered meat one," said Howard's heir-apparent, Treasurer Peter Costello. "It wasn't just that he had a bad day."