UK ‘death for homosexuals’ scholar flies from Australia
Print Edition
A BRITISH Islamic scholar who gave a lecture in Orlando in March and in 2013 had preached that “death is the sentence” for homosexual acts left Australia yesterday after the government launched an “urgent” review of his visa because of his comments.
Farrokh Sekaleshfar had been lecturing at an Islamic center in Sydney on the topic of spirituality.
During a lecture in Michigan in 2013, Sekaleshfar said that in an Islamic society, the death penalty should be carried out for homosexuals who engaged in sodomy.
“Out of compassion, let’s get rid of him now, because he’s contaminating society,” Sekaleshfar had said, according to a recording available online.
There is no evidence of any link between his comments and the American Muslim who killed 49 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States.
Sekaleshfar told the Australian Broadcasting Corp his decision to leave was voluntary and he had not been asked to go by the government. The network showed footage of him entering Sydney airport and said he was flying to Dubai.
“It’s a decision which IHIC thought it was in my best interests and for the best interests of the community. And I didn’t want to go against the committee’s decision,” he said, referring to the Imam Husain Islamic Center, where he had been giving talks.
Zero tolerance for hatred
On Monday, Sekaleshfar told reporters that he condemned the Orlando shooting as a “barbaric act of terror that was in no way justified.”
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday that he had “zero tolerance for people to come to Australia who preach hatred” and his government was reviewing Sekaleshfar’s visa “as we speak.”
Earlier in the day, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said he had been advised of Sekaleshfar’s presence in Australia and his previous comments, and he would look at all the facts before making a decision.
“People who come to our country, regardless of what visa category they come on, they will abide by Australian law or their visa will be canceled and they will be deported from our country,” Dutton said.
Sekaleshfar had told reporters on Monday that his comments in 2013 were made in the context of a lecture on Islamic law and homosexuality and should “not have been interpreted as a call for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to carry out a sentence wherever, whenever they like.”
“In the context it was right,” he said of the Michigan speech. “It wasn’t inciting, nor saying to everyone to kill homosexuals, that it’s open to everyone to do that, that’s not the case.”
He also said he was referring to homosexual acts in public. “Even in an Islamic country, what they do in the privacy of their house, no one can say anything about,” he said.
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