ECAJ statement on the Federal Court of Australia decision against Wissam Haddad.

In Novem­ber 2023, William Had­dad deliv­ered a series of speech­es to his fol­low­ers which were video-record­ed and uploaded to var­i­ous online plat­forms. The speech­es includ­ed gen­er­alised state­ments about the Jew­ish peo­ple which, on any rea­son­able view, were gross­ly anti­se­mit­ic. This occurred at a time when the Hamas atroc­i­ty-crimes in Israel on Octo­ber 7, 2023 had per­verse­ly trig­gered an unprece­dent­ed upsurge in glob­al anti­semitism, includ­ing in Aus­tralia.

When it became evi­dent that the respon­si­ble author­i­ties in Aus­tralia could not or would not act to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty from hate-mon­ger­ing, threats and vio­lence, we decid­ed that we had no alter­na­tive but to take action our­selves so as to defend the safe­ty and hon­our of our com­mu­ni­ty.

That deci­sion has been vin­di­cat­ed by the judg­ment that has just been hand­ed down. It con­firms that the days when Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties and the Jew­ish peo­ple can be vil­i­fied and tar­get­ed, with impuni­ty, are a thing of the past.

This case was not about free­dom of expres­sion or reli­gious free­dom. It was about anti­semitism and the abuse of those free­doms in order to pro­mote anti­semitism.

Peo­ple are free to engage in robust debate about inter­na­tion­al con­flicts, whether their beliefs are true or false, informed or igno­rant. But that does not include the free­dom to mobilise racism as a polem­i­cal tool to pro­mote one’s views – to dehu­man­ise and vil­i­fy entire com­mu­ni­ties or indi­vid­u­als on the basis of their racial, eth­nic or eth­no-reli­gious iden­ti­ty.

If the 300 ances­try groups and 100 faith com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing in Aus­tralia today were all free to vil­i­fy one anoth­er in the way that Mr Had­dad vil­i­fied the Jew­ish peo­ple, the door would be wide open to chron­ic racial and sec­tar­i­an strife of the kind that has dev­as­tat­ed oth­er coun­tries, and the peace and har­mo­ny we have gen­er­al­ly enjoyed in Aus­tralia would be ruined for every­one.

Com­mon decen­cy should dic­tate that free speech and free­dom of reli­gion do not include the right to racial­ly vil­i­fy oth­er peo­ple. Com­mon decen­cy should tell us that that is where to draw the line. But when com­mon decen­cy is lack­ing, as we have seen far too often over the last 21 months, then the law will draw that line for us, as today’s judg­ment has demon­strat­ed with crys­tal clar­i­ty.