‘Fundamentally racist’: Sydney preacher learns fate over controversial lectures

A Sydney-born Islamic preacher vilified the Jewish community in three lectures posted online that perpetuated “age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist”, the Federal Court has ruled.

In a decision on Tuesday, Justice Angus Stewart found Wissam Haddad, who refers to himself as Abu Ousayd on Instagram, contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and ordered that the lectures be removed from social media.

Wissam Haddad arriving at Federal Court on Tuesday.Credit: Edwina Pickles

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, via its co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot, filed proceedings against Haddad under section 18C over five speeches delivered at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown in late 2023. The speeches were subsequently posted online.

Of the five speeches, Stewart found three lectures were reasonably likely “to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” members of the Jewish community and the comments were made because of the “race, colour or national or ethnic origin” of that other person or group.

The lectures contained “age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist” and were “delivered at a time of heightened vulnerability and fragility” in the Jewish community.

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The judge found a separate interview and a sermon did not fall foul of the racial discrimination laws because they contained comments critical of Israeli defence forces and Zionists, and would not be understood to be referring to Jewish people in general.

Haddad had referred to Jews in the lectures as a “treacherous” and “vile people” and “descendants of apes and pigs”.

Wertheim and Goot had sought a court order requiring Haddad and the centre’s incorporated association to remove the speeches online, not to repeat similar statements, and legal costs.

Haddad’s legal team unsuccessfully argued an exemption in section 18D of the law applies because he acted “reasonably and in good faith” in the course of a debate in the public interest.

Stewart said they were neither delivered reasonably nor in good faith.

More to come.

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