Last year, after more than 13,000 Australians signed a petition launched by this webpage, the Defence imam resigned.
Sheikh Mohammadu Nawas Saleem had called for Sharia law and publicly backed the radical Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir.
Now the Australian Defence Force has confirmed via Senate Estimates that Saleem passed a ‘baseline security check’. As a result, he was cleared to access classified information up to ‘Protected’ ratings.
Defence has also refused to detail whether Saleem had access to any Defence bases but has informed Senate Estimates that one purpose of security clearances is to ensure that measures are taken to ‘mitigate the threat of malicious trusted insiders’.
One can only wonder how Defence actually plans to mitigate against the threat of insider attacks when a known public supporter of an organisation that has called for an army to impose Sharia law in Australia can be granted a security clearance.
The wonder can only grow when it is clear that Defence’s use of the English language tends to indicate that it has the exact opposite understanding of what words actually mean.
Here’s just one example: Defence was also asked by Senator Fraser Anning whether there were any special recruitment processes underway to increase Islamic recruitment.
The answer was no.
Fair enough.
However, the very next question asked Defence whether it was true that the Navy recruitment website promoted a ‘devout Muslim’.
The answer was yes, with a protestation that advertising a ‘devout Muslim’ was not a specific program to recruit Muslims but an initiative to ‘encourage a diverse range of candidates to consider applying to join the Navy’.
Defence also droned on that this showed it ‘embraces religious and cultural diversity, and has an equal opportunity policy for all’.
Please. Give me a break.
And for the record, I cannot find Defence advertising devout adherents of any belief system other than Islam.
Despite its claim that there are no special programs to recruit Muslims, Defence has also told Senate Estimates that there are now 93 full-time personnel and another 62 reservists who are Islamic.
When Stuart Robert announced the appointment of the Defence imam in 2015 there were only 96 Muslims in the entire Defence Force.
So that’s an increase of 161%, which seems a rather extraordinary coincidence. This denial is even more ludicrous given the statement made by then Assistant Minister for Defence, Stuart Robert, linking the appointment of the Defence imam with recruitment:
Capability through Diversity is all about enhancing the combat power of the ADF by widening the national recruitment pool and tapping into the tremendous latent resources that a culturally and linguistically diverse workforce brings to Defence.
Meanwhile, Defence has also informed Senate Estimates that it is looking for a new imam to replace Saleem. I’ll keep you informed as this madness unfolds…
December 25, 2019
We will always be at War with Islam.Read their Quoran!
June 5, 2018
Why on earth would ‘devout Muslims’ be chosen as the poster boyz and gurlz for the ADF Capability through Diversity mantra. This is a stupid exercise in brand association. Supposedly, the minions are supposed to associate Muslims with combat capability because of their high diversity score card. Islam is not diverse – it is depressingly the same where-ever it strikes root.
Greece has a long poetic tradition of heroic strife famed afar – why can’t Greek Orthodox be the new poster boyz for Capability through Diversity.
Why can’t the leading lights for ADF policy mount up on their unicorns and ride over to Melbourne to get some good pix for the new campaign.
June 5, 2018
Who is really running this Country ? It seems to me that Islam has a major say these days in what Australia does . Our fallen dead must be turning in their graves in pain .??
June 5, 2018
We are not waiting for the clash of civilization’s,it has well and truly started our first step is ban new mosque’s and suspend all Immigration from Islamic Countries it’s Jihad by stealth.Never ,Never,Never!
June 4, 2018
Indonesia outlawed HT, and the “burqa / nikab” has long been banned in Indonesian Islamic tertiary education; Egyptian legislators recently followed suit on the latter. Not a bit of that in Oz though.
I recall open recruiting for the Syria destabilization in Melbourne’s streets a few years ago, and one such desperado picked a fight with me midday outside Qatar Airways’ old address in Collins Street – c. 50m from the sight of many Police at a nearby intersection.
Just some context for those comments by ASIO’s Duncan Lewis dismissing any “refugee-terror” nexus
June 4, 2018
I am a current Reservist so I’d better not say too much. However, I do agree wholeheartedly with the thrust of your blog.
Keep up the great work, Bernard.
June 4, 2018
The tenets of Islam and of the ADF that I served in are completely at odds with each other.
The Hadith ought to be prescribed reading in all Western secondary schools to expose the ‘prophet’ for what he was. Certainly prescribed reading for all Australian politicians.
June 4, 2018
As I’ve said before, Our ADF’s on a very slippery slope. If we ever go to war, we’ll be beaten from the inside
June 4, 2018
Double speak, lies, misappropriation of the truth call it what you will. About time we had a parliamentarian who called out these liars by their name….& demanded action for their lying to parliament. But of course I may as well whistle to the wind.