Press Release
Proposal to Ban Hizb ut Tahrir is Part of a Wider Campaign to Criminalise all Pro-Palestinian Activism

The Australian government’s proposal to ban Hizb ut Tahrir is part of a wider effort to ban all pro-Palestinian activism.

Federal and state governments have proposed a series of unprecedented measures in the wake of Bondi that claw away at the heart of pro-Palestinian activism.

Protests have already been banned and police have been given new enforcement powers. The banning of slogans and symbols is expected to pass through parliament, so too new hate speech laws and the construction of a new legal offence proscribing ‘hate’ organisations that currently do not meet the threshold for ‘terror’ listings.

Federal and state governments have made no secret of their disdain for pro-Palestinian activism. After two years of an (ongoing) genocide, the government’s greatest frustration is the Australian public’s consistent efforts opposing the genocide. Not the fact a genocide was enacted, nor the fact a genocide was enacted through the government’s own complicity.

Zionist advocates have been quick to invent a bow between pro-Palestine efforts and Bondi. A movement that brought together the widest range of voices, protesting peacefully every week, attracting millions over the course of its efforts, culminating in hundreds of thousands famously marching across the Harbour Bridge, is now apparently being reduced to a single event carried out by two disparate individuals.

As an extension of this absurdity, the Islamist bogeyman has been dramatically reintroduced into public life as the primary means through which we understand antisemitism, as if antisemitism is the central consideration in the case of a genocide enacted by Zionists. Apparently the world opposes a genocide because of the religious identity of its perpetrators, not the fact they are enacting a genocide!

The targeting of Hizb ut Tahrir thus serves a dual purpose: i.e., to perpetuate the myth of antisemitism as the central consideration in a genocide enacted by Zionists, and ii. to extend the myth of Zionist victimhood by leaning on racist, Islamophobic tropes that conveniently frames antisemitism as a product of Islamic extremism, not the consequences of the actions of the Zionist entity.

In other words, Muslims as aggressors for opposing a genocide, and Zionists as victims for enacting a genocide. Absurd, right? Just like the proposal to ban Hizb ut Tahrir based on this very premise!

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Australia