The Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, listed Jabhat al-Nusra as a "terrorist organisation" last Friday, 28 June 2013, supposedly because of various randomly-adduced actions and links deemed "terrorist" and because it, "is not part of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which Australia acknowledges as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people." The Government also took the opportunity to re-iterate its deplorable stance on the conflict in Syria.

Uthman Badar, media representative of Hizb ut Tahrir / Australia, said in this regard:

"The Australian Government's stance of Syria is immoral and criminal. It criminalises supporting those who are being slaughtered like animals by the Syrian regime. We condemn it in the strongest of terms. Muslims in Australia are not fooled by the Government's hollow claims of deploring the violence and suffering occurring in Syria. Its actions speak louder than its words."

"The position of the Government is like that of someone who sees a house on fire and not only suffices himself by merely watching on from the sidelines but also stops others who want to go in and assist those caught up inside, instead telling them to wait outside for the dead and injured bodies to come out and provide them with "humanitarian" support. There is nothing humanitarian about this."

"Listing groups fighting the Syrian regime as terrorist organisations is laughable coming from a government who, by its own definition of "terrorism" and "violent extremism", self-evidently qualifies for both. The foreign policy of Australia and "like-minded" states is built on the use of violence for political ends. We challenge the Attorney-General to demonstrate how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do not fall under his government's own definitions of terrorism. Indeed, he should be listing his own government as a terrorist organisation."

"In reality, the policy of the government on Syria, following the US and UK, revolves on its desire to impose a secular alternative to the Assad regime and avoid, at all costs, the establishment of an Islamic government, even if this means suffocating the Islamic aspirations of the people of Syria. Regardless, too, of how many innocent people die in Syria as a result of western states and their puppet regimes playing politics with the lives of millions. This is the type of meddling in the internal affairs of the Muslim world by western states that Muslims globally reject and the consequences of which these states will be held responsible for."

The Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Australia

Contact: Uthman Badar, Media Representative, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 0438 000 465.