Australia Won't Stand For It Anymore

[Joe Guy]

Australian court convicts Muslim woman for failing to stand

SYDNEY (AP) — The wife of an Islamic State group recruiter gave the militants' single-finger salute outside a Sydney court on Friday after becoming the first person convicted under a new state law criminalizing the refusal to stand for a judge.

Moutia Elzahed, 50, defiantly remained seated with her arms folded in the Downing Centre Local Court dressed in a black niqab, gown and gloves after magistrate Carolyn Huntsman delivered the landmark decision.

She was found guilty of nine charges of disrespectful behavior during previous court hearings she was involved in. She will be sentenced on June 15.

New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, introduced the law in 2016 after several Muslim defendants refused to stand for judges on religious grounds.

The magistrate found Elzahed had repeatedly and intentionally flouted the established court convention in 2016 when she failed to rise for District Court Judge Audrey Balla. Elzahed said she only stood for Allah, but Huntsman found no evidence she had acted on a genuine religious belief.

"No evidence was presented that the teachings of Islam compel this conduct," the magistrate said.

In 2016, Elzahed had been trying to sue the state and federal governments on claims of police violence and wrongful imprisonment over a raid on her Sydney home two years earlier. She was ultimately unsuccessful.

Closed circuit TV showed Elzahed failed to rise in court nine times, with each offense carrying a maximum jail term of 14 days and a 1,100 Australian dollar ($828) fine.

Defense lawyers had initially cast doubt over whether Elzahed was the woman under the black robes who refused to stand. But they later said her identity would not be contested.

Elzahed is married to Sydney resident Hamdi Alqudsi, who was sentenced in 2016 to eight years in prison for helping young Australians reach Syria to fight for extremists.

source

[Big RR]

Shades of the Chicago 7/8 trial. Is this judge (purposely a small j) Hoffman reincarnated?

[Lord Jim]

"No evidence was presented that the teachings of Islam compel this conduct," the magistrate said.

So she didn't even attempt to provide any genuine, legitimate religious basis to back up her assertion...

each offense carrying a maximum jail term of 14 days and a 1,100 Australian dollar ($828) fine.

Not exactly life imprisonment...

This is obviously a form of contempt of court; not really seeing the problem here...

[Scooter]

"No evidence was presented that the teachings of Islam compel this conduct," the magistrate said.

So she didn't even attempt to provide any genuine, legitimate religious basis to back up her assertion...

Maybe she didn't, but it actually doesn't say that, and if that was the only basis for the judge's ruling, it is probably appealable. Not sure what the standard is in Australia, but in Canada and the United States, whether or not a religious belief is genuine is dependent only on whether it is sincerely held by the person at issue. Whether or not it conforms to the dogma of some organized religion system is irrelevant.

Now, she may not have demonstrated any genuinely held personal belief either, but whether she did or not is not apparent from this narrative.

[Gob]

May I say, even if your particular brand of superstition states you do not have to stand for a judge etc, it does not over ride the laws of the land, so fuck you.

[BoSoxGal]

Under our 1st amendment, sometimes religious belief and practice does trump the law of the land - that’s the whole point.

[Gob]

Luckily we don't live under your system.

[Crackpot]

Neither do you anymore.

[BoSoxGal]

I think what you meant was, ‘you’re not part of ‘we’ anymore’.

[Joe Guy]

With Crackpot, we always know what he means so it doesn't matter how he says it...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Defense lawyers had initially cast doubt over whether Elzahed was the woman under the black robes who refused to stand. But they later said her identity would not be contested.

The old "SODUT" defense, eh?
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Some other dude's under there

[Gob]

I was using the royal "we". Neither the UK nor Aus live under your "interesting" system....