Howard to meet with Muslim leaders

August 7, 2005 - 1:49PM

Prime Minister John Howard says Muslim leaders need to help "bust open" extremist cells that are breeding grounds for hatred as part of the fight against terrorism.

He has called a meeting of Muslim leaders, due to be held in the next few weeks, where he will tell them of the need to eliminate extremist preaching and promote peace and cooperation.

He will also assure the leaders that they should not feel their community is under attack.

"That would be not only counter productive, it would be quite unjust because the overwhelming majority of them share the abhorrence that we do about violence and terrorism," Mr Howard told ABC television.

"But they do have responsibilities and we have to guard against this country going down the path of societies where you have closed cells which are really the product of people being able to operate with a degree of immunity in their own communities.

"That really is something that we have to bust open."

Mr Howard said fighting terrorism had to involve the double effort of getting inside communities where potentially hostile groups may be, and ensuring there are effective laws to deal with terrorists.

Getting into closed communities, he said, would be more challenging because it involves enlisting their cooperation.

The prime minister said people in Britain's Muslim community must have known something about the plans for the London bombings.

"What happened in Britain was that you had British born people (involved in the attacks)," he said.

"Their communities must have known something of it. I find it hard to accept that they didn't and the reality is that there was no human intelligence suggesting otherwise."

The meeting with Australia's Muslim leaders will be held before next month's emergency summit with state and territory leaders to discuss terrorism laws.

The federal government is already considering tougher laws against inciting terrorism and facilitating the deportation of extremist Muslims.

Mr Howard said he will not rush into strengthening the laws.

''I'm not going to make up a new criminal code on the run,'' he said.

''It's very important with these things that having laid down the markers that we'll look at what further should be done, ... but emphasising all the time that getting inside communities and understanding what's going on is crucially important to effectively responding to the threat of terrorism.''

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is considering laws to deporting extremists, and Mr Howard indicated the idea has merit.

''I think when somebody comes into this country you enter into a mutual obligation understanding,'' he said.

''You receive the benefits of living in Australia and in return you have an obligation to embrace and imbibe the values and attitudes unconditionally ... of this society.

''I think that's a fair balance and most Australians would see it in those terms.''

Taken from The Age. Also seen in The Jakarta Post.