Sydney - Australia's top Muslim cleric was roundly condemned Thursday for saying women who didn't wear a veil were asking to be raped.

'They are appalling and reprehensible comments,' Prime Minister John Howard said. 'The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous.'

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward accused Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali of inciting sexual assault by excusing the perpetrators while blaming the victims.

She said the Egyptian-born Mufti of Australia should be deported. 'It's time we stopped just saying he should apologise,' Goward said of the leader of Australia's 350,000 Muslims. 'I think it's time he left.'

Al-Hilali likened unveiled women to 'uncovered meat' in a fasting month sermon in Arabic to 500 worshippers at Sydney's biggest mosque.

'If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem,' he said.

Al-Hilali told the congregation he leads that a woman who stayed home and was veiled would be safe from sexual assault. 'If she was in her room, in her home, in her hajib (veil), no problem would have occurred.'

The 66-year-old apologized for the comments, saying he had 'only intended to protect women's honour.'

Al-Hilali, who serves on Howard's handpicked 14-member Muslim advisory board, has stirred controversy before. He has defended suicide bombers who strike at Israel, described as 'God's work' the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and blamed Jews for 'all the wars and problems that threaten the peace and stability of all the world.'

Al-Hilali, who rarely speaks in English despite having lived in Australia for 20 years, was also blasted by Treasurer Peter Costello, the deputy leader of Howard's Liberal Party.

'This is totally unacceptable,' Costello said. 'This is comparing women to uncovered meat.'

Costello was the first in the government to raise the possibility that Islamic extremists could be deported if they held another country's passport as well as an Australian one.

'If you have a significant religious leader like this preaching to a flock in a situation where we have had gang rapes ... then people that listen to that kind of comment can get the wrong idea,' Costello said.

His reference was to a series of gang rapes of white women by Muslim men in Sydney in 2000 in which the victims were told they were targeted because they were 'Aussie pigs.'

Sophie Mirabella, also a Liberal Party lawmaker, called for the mufti to be sacked and for all 14 of Howard's Muslim advisors to stand up and condemn his views on women.

'I have a message for Sheik al-Hilai: this is Australia, not Iran, and violence and degradation of women is not acceptable,' she said.

Waleed Aly, a spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, condemned al-Hilali and called for his resignation, saying his views sought to normalize immoral sexual behaviour.

'It's basically saying that the immoral response of men to women who are not fully covered is as natural and as inevitable as the response of an animal tempted by food,' Aly said. 'But men are people who have moral responsibilities and the capability in engaging in moral action.'

Aly said he fully expected a backlash. 'I am expecting a deluge of hate mail,' he said. 'I am expecting people to get abused in the street and get abused at work.'

He added: 'The idea that somehow victims on that occasion (the Sydney gang rapes) were to blame, or in any way invited that sort of assault, is probably the most disgusting comment we will see in the country for a very long time.'

monstersandcritics.com

Quote:Australia's top Muslim cleric was roundly condemned Thursday for saying women who didn't wear a veil were asking to be raped.

Strange thing to say, maybe he has lost touch with reality :?

Quote:The 66-year-old apologized for the comments, saying he had 'only intended to protect women's honour.'

Maybe he was just misunderstood? :roll:

THE daughter of besieged Muslim cleric Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly said his comments have been misinterpreted and the media should "leave him alone".

Asma al-Hilaly said her father comments implying that immodestly dressed women invite sexual attacks were not his own words.

She said the offending quote, likening women to uncovered meat tempting cats to eat it, was offered to a group of old men as a way urging them, to teach their daughters to be modest.

"All I'm saying is that what he said was (taken) out of context," Ms al-Hilaly told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"Leave him alone. He is a sick man.

"He was in a house of God. He was only preaching to a group of old men. And his only concern was for them to keep their daughters modest.

"It all got out of context, blown out of proportion out of something little. Move on."

Ms al-Hilaly said her father was misinterpreted by unfair translation of the sermon.

"He was not inviting people to rape (women). That's the thing that was out of context," she said.

"He was just teaching women to be modest."

Sheik al-Hilaly outraged Muslim community leaders and federal and state politicians with his comments, made during a Ramadan sermon to 500 worshippers in Sydney last month.

Excerpts from a recording of the 17-minute sermon appeared in The Australian newspaper yesterday.

The Sheik alluded to rapes in 2000 in which four women were separately gang-raped by young Muslim men, including Bilal Skaf, who received a 55-year jail sentence, later reduced.

He said there were women who "sway suggestively" and wore make-up and inappropriate clothes, "and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years", The Australian reported.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat," the sheik asked.

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (head scarf), no problem would have occurred."

news.com.au