Australian Immigration Daily News

Should a person be prohibited from coming to Australia on a speaking tour because of bigoted, hate-filled statements that he has made in the past? 

Is the Department doing its job when it comes to assessing applicants for visitor visas against the character test? 

These issues are presented by an article that appeared late last week in the Sydney Morning Herald, which appeared under the headline: “Pakistani scholar ordered home from Australian tour after anti-Semitic video emerges”.  

The story, as reported in the Herald, was that the scholar, Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai, had come to Australia on a speaking tour. 

Fairfax Media, the publisher of the Herald, discovered a video of a sermon reportedly given by Mr Mustafai, which according to the article was entitled: “Jews are the enemies of Islam and the real peace”.  Again, according to the article, Mr Mustafai made the following statement in the sermon: 

“…all the troubles that exist around the world are because of the Jews. When the Jews are wiped out, then the world would be purified”. 

The Herald article states that Fairfax Media alerted the Pakistan Association of Australia, which in turn contacted the Ghausia Masjid Mosque in Blacktown, NSW that had organized the speaking tour. 

The mosque then decided to cancel the rest of Mr Mustafai’s talks and asked him to return home. 

It is noteworthy that, according to the article, it was the mosque, and not the Department, that cancelled the rest of the tour. 

It is surely apparent that it would have been within the Department’s powers to refuse to grant a visa to Mr Mustafai on character grounds.  Section 501(6)(d) of the Migration Act  provides that a person does not pass the character test if there is a risk that if the person were to enter or remain in Australia, he would “vilify a segment of the Australian community”, “incite discord in the Australian community”. 

According to the Herald article, the Department declined to comment on the case, other than for a spokesperson to say that “the government “takes very seriously” its role of refusing visas on character grounds”. 

One might have reason to question how seriously the government does take its responsibility! After all, it was Fairfax Media, and not the Department, that discovered the video.  And it was the mosque that organized the speaking tour, and not the Department, that asked Mr Mustafai to cancel the remainder of his tour. 

There are some other interesting, thought-provoking aspects of this case:  the Herald article reports that the president of the Pakistan Association of Australia had met with Mr Mustafai, and that he said that the video did not reflect his opinions but were “a quote from a book”.   

The article also says that during his speaking tour in Australia, Mr Mustafai had given talks about “fitting Islamic rules into life in Western countries” and “Islamic prophets”.

So that raises a question: Suppose that Mr Mustafai’s claims that the statements made on the video were not his own views, but merely a quote from a book, were proven to be correct? If that were the case, should he have been banned from entering Australia? 

And suppose a person has engaged in “hate speech” in the past, but that when they come to Australia they do not engage in such speech, but rather only talk about other topics. In those circumstances should they be prevented from remaining in Australia? 

And here’s another question:  Why did it fall to Fairfax Media to look into this person’s background, and to examine his previous talks?  

Where was the Department in all of this? Exactly what background checks did the Department do before allowing this person to enter Australia on a speaking tour? Did it look into the contents of his previous speeches? 

Speaking for myself, I find a deep irony in this case. I have had some matters where people from overseas have been refused visitor visas on the grounds that they did not satisfy the genuine temporary entrant requirement.  And by contrast, if it was indeed the case (which is not known) that Mr Mustafai does hold the views found in the video, here we have a person who has allegedly engaged in hate speech who apparently had no trouble getting a visitor’s visa. 

Is there something wrong with this picture, or am I missing something? 

Was the Department asleep at the switch here? 

Can it be arbitrary, unreasonable and wrongheaded when it comes to applications for visitor visas? 

What do you think?