A Sydney Muslim cleric being sued for alleged racial discrimination has told the federal court no Jewish person could be offended over a series of lectures in which he described Jewish people in the seventh century as “mischievous”, “treacherous” and “vile” because the lectures were delivered to a private Muslim audience.
While giving evidence to the federal court on Wednesday, Wissam Haddad was taken to evidence of his own advertisements on Instagram, promoting several of the speeches, and which included the words: “the lecture will be recorded and then uploaded on YouTube”.
In the witness box he was forced to concede he knew his speeches would be broadcast more widely than his immediate audience.
Haddad – whose legal first name is William but who is also known as Abu Ousayd – is being sued by two senior members of Australia’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), over a series of lectures he gave in Bankstown in November 2023 and subsequently broadcast online, in which he is alleged to have maligned Jewish people.
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Haddad allegedly breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Actwhich prohibits offensive behaviour based on race or ethnic origin.
Haddad’s defence argues the speeches were delivered to a known Muslim audience, in a private place, and fail the clause in 18C that the offensive act is unlawful when it is committed “otherwise than in private”.
In submissions filed before the federal court, Haddad argues four of the five speeches were delivered at his prayer centre, Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown.
“The centre is a stand-alone building which is manifestly a private property – it is surrounded by high black fencing and its entrance carries a sign that says ‘Private Property No Trespassing’.”
Haddad’s submissions to the court said there was no standing invitation for any non-Muslims to attend the centre.
“There will be no evidence that any of the speeches was attended or heard by anyone who was not a regular congregant of the centre and a practising Muslim.”
The remaining speech was a conversation in a room between three people.
Haddad was called as a witness late on Wednesday morning. He told the court uploading his speeches to social media was not part of his responsibilities. “I’m not involved,” he told the court.
But under repeated questioning from one of the applicant’s barristers, Peter Braham SC, he told the court he knew his speeches would be posted online.
“Yes I did.”
Haddad said the speeches were posted online by “someone from the community”. Asked who it was, Haddad said: “I’m not at liberty to give his name because I don’t think it’s relevant.”
Peter Wertheim, one of the applicants in the case and ECAJ’s co-chief executive, told the federal court on Tuesday that he was first alerted to the presence of Haddad’s speeches online by coverage of them in mainstream media.
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He said Haddad’s speeches used “overtly dehumanising” language.
“Making derogatory generalisations, calling Jews a vile and treacherous people, calling them rats and cowards … are things which I think would be experienced by most Jews as dehumanising,” Wertheim said.
His barrister, Braham, told the court Haddad’s speeches repeated a range of offensive tropes and were designed to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate Jewish people.
The court heard Haddad had sound recording and camera equipment installed to record his speeches, which Wertheim’s barrister argued was for the purpose of disseminating his message far beyond his congregants. He would speak before a backdrop branded with the Al Madina Dawah Centre logo, but which also included logos of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms.
The applicants are seeking an injunction that Haddad’s five offending sermons be removed from the internet, and an order that he refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
Wertheim and his co-applicant, Robert Goot, are also seeking publication of a “corrective notice” on Haddad’s prayer centre’s social media pages, and to be awarded the legal costs of bringing their action. They have not sought damages or compensation.
Haddad’s barrister, Andrew Boe, argued the cleric’s speeches were addressed to, and intended only for, a private Muslim congregation and that Haddad was not responsible for them being published online.
Boe said it was unlikely a Jewish person would have discovered the speeches, to then be offended by them, if the recordings had not been covered and thus amplified by mainstream media.
“It would be analogous to a person of a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography on the web and then complaining about being offended by it,” Boe told the court.
Boe argued there must be room, in a democratic society, for “the confronting, the challenging, even the shocking”.
The hearing, before Justice Angus Stewart, is expected to run until the end of the week.
