Use children as troops, says cleric

By Luke McIlveen and staff writers

January 18, 2007 08:58am

SYDNEY'S most influential radical Muslim cleric has been caught on film calling Jews pigs and urging children to die for Allah.

Firebrand Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, delivered the hateful rants on a collection of DVDs called the Death Series being sold in Australia and overseas.

"Today many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in the their hearts, the love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah," Sheik Feiz says in the video.

"We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom."

An Australian citizen born in Sydney who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, Sheik Feiz was exposed this week in a British documentary Undercover Mosque.

Investigators found Sheik Feiz's DVDs being sold by children in the carpark of the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham and other Islamic bookshops. The entire set can be bought online for $150.

"The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he declares in the film, before denouncing "kaffirs" (non-Muslims).

"Kaffir is the worst word ever written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt."

In an excerpt from a video lecture series called Signs of the Hour, Sheik Feiz then ridicules Jews as pigs.

Sheik Feiz - who just two weeks ago said he felt like an "alien" in his own country - leads about 4000 followers through his Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney's southwest.

He also accused Australian authorities of being over-zealous in their approach to clerics like him.

"There are no sheiks preaching chaos there. No one is telling people to raise arms against the Australian community," he said.

Sheik Feiz left for Lebanon just before the arrest of 23 men in Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005.

Public response

Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian has called for the sheik to be charged over his comments.

"The public prosecutor, the federal prosecutor should really have a close look at what is being conveyed by this guy and whether it is in breach of any laws and he should be charged," Mr Kerkyasharian told Macquarie Radio.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the sheik should not abuse his position to incite hatred.

"It is of great concern when people in positions of influence, who should be demonstrating responsible leadership, abuse that power to incite racial hatred," Mr Alhadeff said.

"As a Jewish community, we work well and closely with moderate sectors of the Muslim community.

"Hate speech such as these remarks by Sheik Mohammed has no place in Australian society and must be vigorously condemned by all."

From The Daily Telegraph