The Immam has been barred.
Australia’s top Muslim cleric has been barred from preaching for three months after he compared women who dress immodestly to meat that is left uncovered and then attracts cats. But the government on Friday denounced the punishment as too lenient.
The comments by the cleric, Sheik Taj el-Din Hamid Hilaly, the mufti of Australia’s biggest mosque, outraged many Muslims and other Australians and prompted calls for his firing and deportation.
On Thursday night the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association, which owns the mosque, suspended him.
On Friday, Prime Minister John Howard said that was not enough.
“I believe that unless this matter is satisfactorily resolved by the Islamic community, there is a real worry that some lasting damage will be done,” Mr. Howard told Australian radio. “We do not want the Islamic community isolated. We do not want the Islamic community to be an object of criticism and derision.”
Mr. Howard said that Mr. Hilaly, who was born in Egypt and courted controversy two years ago by glorifying martyrdom and calling the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States the work of God, was now an Australian citizen and could not be deported.
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