“Moderate” imam serving as Australian Defense Force religious adviser turns out to be “extremist”

JULY 3, 2017 10:48 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER37 COMMENTS

He opposed a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, which openly calls for Sharia rule in Australia, the U.S. and everywhere else it is allowed to operate. He did this before he was appointed a religious adviser to the Australian Defence Force. So who decided that he was a “moderate” and not an “extremist”? It was no doubt simply assumed.

“Muslim imam resigns as Australian Defence Force’s religious adviser after senator reveals the shiekh signed a petition supporting Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir,” by Stephen Johnson,Daily Mail Australia, July 3, 2017:

A Muslim imam has resigned as a taxpayer-funded Australian Defence Force religious adviser after a senator told parliament he had signed a petition in favour of Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Sheikh Mohamadu Nawas Saleem quit his $717-a-day post last month, only days after Australian Conservatives Senator Cory Bernardi questioned how the government could justify employing someone who opposed democracy.

Former Iraq war veteran Bernard Gaynor, who launched a petition calling for Sheikh Saleem’s removal as Defence imam, said the government was embarrassed.

‘The government’s been very quiet about the resignation,’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Sunday.

‘They’ve been running politically correct games with in the Defence Force and they’re embarrassed by the scrutiny.’

Defence Personnel Minister Dan Tehan announced late last month Sheikh Saleem had resigned from the Religious Advisory Committee to the Services, which advises the Australian Defence Force.

His spokesman declined to detail the circumstances of the resignation in the wake of Liberal defector Senator Bernardi’s speech to parliament.

Mr Tehan’s short-lived predecessor Stuart Robert appointed Sheikh Saleem in June 2015 to his $717 a day role as a religious adviser.

Four months earlier, in February 2015, Sheikh Saleem added his name to a petition opposing then prime minister Tony Abbott’s plan to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia.

The petition argued Hizb ut-Tahrir, which supports Sharia law and has a constitution backing the death penalty for ex-Muslims, had never committed terrorist acts in Australia.

But the group’s Islamist ideology is so extreme it is banned in Germany, The Netherlands, Russia and a range of Muslim-majority nations including Indonesia Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Saudi Arabia….