DAR AL HARB - AUSTRALIA: JIHAD SHEILAS WERE NOT DUPED, MAY LOSE PASSPORT

Second 'jihad sheila' faces losing passport
by Tom Allard National Security Editor
February 6, 2008

RAISAH BINT ALAN DOUGLAS, an Australian convert to Islam who praised Osama bin Laden and says she would gladly send her children to fight Australian troops overseas, risks having her passport taken from her after her controversial comments.

Ms Douglas made the remarks in a documentary aired on ABC TV last night in which she also lambasted a female ASIO officer as a "reject from Sluts-R-Us" and spoke of her passion for bearded Muslim men who talk of jihad and carry swords.

Ms Douglas and her close friend Rabiah Hutchinson, who also featured in Jihad Sheilas, remain angry at the makers of the documentary, believing they were duped into taking part, filmed secretly at times and lied to by reporters.

But neither resiled from their comments, including Ms Hutchinson's observation that the victims of the Bali terrorist attacks deserved less sympathy because they were holidaying "in someone else's country, sometimes engaging in child pornography or pedophilia or drug taking".

Authorities cancelled Ms Hutchinson's passport in 2003 on the grounds she was a national security risk. Security sources said similar action for Ms Douglas was a distinct possibility.

In the documentary, Ms Douglas said: "If I'm on the other side of the world and Australian soldiers come upon our shore there, be assured my children will be in front to give you the hard time you gave us."

She also said bin Laden followed the "correct" version of Islam and had made many Muslims realise that they were being oppressed by the West.


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ABC denies 'Jihad Sheilas' were duped
by Amanda Meade

FOR as long as ABC journalists Mary Ann Jolley and Renata Gombac have been working on Jihad Sheilas, tension has been mounting within the corridors of the national broadcaster.

Another ABC journalist, investigative reporter Sally Neighbour, had been working on securing the story of Australian women and radical Islam for the program she was working for, Four Corners.

But it was Jolley and Gombac who persuaded Raisah bint Alan Douglas and Rabiah Hutchinson to be interviewed on camera.

Jolley works for Foreign Correspondent and Gombac for the ABC's stand-alone investigative unit, which produces stories for programs across the news and current affairs division. They spent about six months working on this project, with a senior producer, Deb Masters, brought in at a later stage as executive producer.

...

Sunderland, who has managed the program for the news division, said when Jolley and Gombac told him they had secured interviews with the women, several options for telling the story were discussed, ranging from Four Corners through to Foreign Correspondent and The 7.30 Report to Australian Story and a one-off news special. It is understood Australian Story had no involvement at any stage in the project.

However, Sunderland insists once the filming had started, the women were not given the impression it was for Australian Story. Based on the tone of the story and the type of material gathered, it was decided to commission a news special, Sunderland says. After initially co-operating, one and then both women withdrew their support.

Sunderland rejects the accusation they were tricked into telling their story by a promise it would be on Australian Story, a subject-led format that has no narrator and allows subjects to tell their story at length.

"I am comfortable they have behaved with integrity," Sunderland said of Gombac and Jolley. "The program was always going to be about two women who had not told their stories on television before.

"They understood they were doing it as a documentary-style program. They were told it would be fair and not necessarily sympathetic and they knew they would have no editorial control."


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Bali survivor slams Islam matriarch
by Nicola Berkovic

A SURVIVOR of the first Bali bombing said the "star" of last night's ABC documentary Jihad Sheilas would be hunted down after her hardline comments about the victims.

'Jihad Sheilas' Raisah Douglas and Rabiah Hutchinson accused ABC of 'portraying them as traitors'.

Peter Hughes said Rabiah Hutchinson, the so-called matriarch of radical Islam in Australia, was uninformed and utterly insensitive.

"It's like going back to that moment when the suicide bomber was standing next to me," said Mr Hughes, who nearly died after the October 2002 attack in which 202 people, including 88 Australians, were killed.

Mr Hughes warned there would be some people in the community who would hunt down Ms Hutchinson, who, fearing exactly that, attempted to have the show stopped on the grounds it misrepresented the views of herself and friend Raisah bint Alan Douglas.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Second 'jihad sheila' faces losing passport

2) ABC denies 'Jihad Sheilas' were duped

3) Bali survivor slams Islam matriarch