Saturday, August 07, 2010

Islam is an ideology, not a race


Andrew Bolt
That’s it. Spot on! Some people in the right places must be reading WoJ.
 
A very sane decision by the Equal Opportunity Division of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal:
53 First, vilification of Muslims does not fall within section 20C(1), because Muslims are not a ‘race’ as defined in section 4 of the Act. The reason, as the Tribunal said in Khan [i.e., Khan v Commissioner, Department of Corrective Services & anor [2002] NSWADT 131] at [18], is that Muslims ‘do not share common racial, national or ethnic origins’ and are therefore not an ethno-religious group such as the definition embraces. In so ruling, we follow the decisions, commencing with Khan, that are listed above at [44]. We are unaware of any recent authority to the contrary. It follows that any statements broadcast by the Respondents that generated negative feelings towards Muslims generally, or any group of Muslims, on the ground of their being Muslims could not amount to unlawful racial vilification.

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