DAR AL HARB - AUSTRALIA: "NAZI" & "TERRORIST"

Muslim portrayed as 'Nazi' on radio
by James Madden

ISLAMIC identity Keysar Trad was portrayed as a "Nazi" and a "terrorist" by a Sydney radio presenter who accused him of inciting violence and racism at a peace rally held two weeks after the 2005 Cronulla riots.

Mr Trad is suing Harbour Radio, the licensee of Sydney radio station 2GB, over an allegation that presenter Jason Morrison had claimed on air that Mr Trad had urged people at the rally to commit violence.

Mr Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association and former spokesman for ousted cleric Taj Din al-Hilali, was also labelled "disgraceful" by Morrison during the December 2005 broadcast.

The NSW Supreme Court was told yesterday that Morrison's claim had damaged Mr Trad's reputation by portraying him in the same light as a Nazi or a terrorist.

"People who stirred up hatred, that's what the Nazis used to do," Mr Trad's lawyer Clive Evatt told the four-person jury.

The court heard a recording of the program, during which Morrison said Mr Trad was a "well-known apologist for the Islamic community" who "spewed hatred and bile" at the rally.

Richard McHugh, for Harbour Radio, admitted that some of Morrison's comments were defamatory. But he urged the jury to consider whether the "ordinary, reasonable listener" would have paid full attention to all the comments.

"They may not focus with equal attention on every single portion," Mr McHugh said. "They may have been listening at the kitchen table, or at the office, or on a bus, or doing the ironing. You must give consideration to the manner in which they were listening."

Mr Trad alleges that 10 separate defamatory imputations had been made against him during the broadcast.



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1) Muslim portrayed as 'Nazi' on radio