Federal court orders Sydney Muslim cleric to remove ‘racist and antisemitic’ lectures from social media

Wissam Haddad was sued by two members of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry over lectures in 2023 recorded in Bankstown

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A Sydney Muslim cleric has been ordered by the federal court to take down a series of “fundamentally racist and antisemitic” speeches posted online, and instructed by a judge not to make similar addresses again.

Wissam Haddad – whose legal first name is William but who is also known as Abu Ousayd – has been successfully sued by two senior members of Australia’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), over a series of lectures he gave at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown in November 2023 – subsequently broadcast online – in which, the court found, he maligned Jewish people.

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