Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I too commend the member for Brisbane for raising this important motion in the parliament and for her prompt arrangement of an appearance of a representative of Nigeria before the appropriate committee of this parliament. I know the opposition will support at the intelligence committee the next stage of the proscription of this dreadful group Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group which is the self-proclaimed Nigerian wing of Al-Qaeda.

It is very important, for the proposal of this resolution to understand and for members of the Australian public to understand, that important leaders of the great religion of Islam have condemned this particular group. Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti recently told Al-Hayat, an important Arab language newspaper, that the group was set up to smear the image of Islam, and condemned the kidnapping of 200 girls, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh said the Boko Haram was trying to establish Islam in a misguided way in Nigeria and was showing people the wrong path and trying to get people to reject it.

The kidnapping of 200 Christian and Muslim schoolgirls is made more odious by the forced conversion and boasts of—

See this speech in context