Anti-Islam campaigner calls for Islamic schools to be banned in Australia
A controversial anti-Islam campaigner has called for all Islamic schools in Australia to be closed.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was forced to cancel her Australian speaking tour, in part over concerns for her safety, said in an exclusive interview with Seven News that the schools should be banned from all liberal nations.
"Many of these Islamic school are established to begin with to inculcate into the student's heads that Islamic law is superior to all other laws and all other frameworks of morality," Ms Ali said.
"I think that's wrong.
"There is no principal, no moral framework, no set of laws that dehumanises women and degrades them and robs them of their dignity and rights more than Sharia law."
Ms Ali lives surrounded by heavy security and under constant threat due to her criticism of Islam, especially its treatment of women.
But she says her critics will not silence her.
"You cannot criticise Islam.
"All our leaders are saying ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, Islam is a religion of peace and all this other nonsense.
"And I don't know what we expect, because in the last 15 years, our political, academic and media leaders have maintained this line, but radical Islam has only grown."
Ms Ali has also likened wearing a burka to wearing a "very big Swastika".
“The burka that covers the face and that is really very much in your face, the kind of thing that stands out in the mall, that is just like the ISIS flag,” she told Seven reporter Bryan Seymour on Tuesday.
It's comments like these which have prompted some Australian Muslim women to condemn Ms Ali as a hatemonger.
In a video posted to Facebook some women have spoken out against Ms Ali saying: "You're not here to help us or stand with... you're here to profit from an industry that exists to dehumanise us".
The women in the video say Ms Ali does not speak for them.
"You are not our ally," one woman says in the video.
"You're not interested in our lives or our freedom.
"You've described Muslim women as being irrational, docile, of having no minds of our own. You've called us slaves."
They say that the language Ms Ali is using is the language of oppression, misogyny and patriarchy which is often used to justify wars, invasion and genocide.
Ms Ali said she still hopes to come to Australia soon.
"Yes, absolutely. I feel very welcome and I feel I am in a free country, the only thing I hope is for Australians not to take that freedom for granted, but to defend it."
