Fed: Radical sheik barred from Australia

AAP General News (Australia)
04-04-2007
Fed: Radical sheik barred from Australia

MELBOURNE, April 4 AAP - A radical Muslim cleric has been refused entry to Australia,
and another has been asked to show cause why he should not also be banned, just days before
they were due to attend an Islamic conference in Melbourne.

Sheik Bilal Philips, a Canadian citizen who lives in Qatar, was banned at the last
minute by Department of Immigration officials, believed to have been acting on national
security agency advice, the Herald Sun reported today.

Sheik Philips' ban has been confirmed by Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

He was due to speak at the Australian Islamic Conference at the University of Melbourne
over the Easter weekend.

The US government has named him an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing in New York City, and he was deported from the US in 2004.

The Herald Sun reported Sheik Philips once wrote: "Western culture, led by the United
States, is the enemy of Islam".

Meanwhile, Saudi-based academic Sheik Jaafer Idris, who was also to attend the conference,
has been asked to show cause why he should be allowed to enter Australia.

It is unlikely Mr Idris will be able to provide the information in time before the
conference, sources told the Herald Sun.

Sheik Idris, 76, a Sudanese citizen, espouses a radical form of Islam known as Wahhabism,
the report said.

AAP jrd/it/

KEYWORD: PHILIPS

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