Channel Nine presenter Sonia Kruger made “vilifying” remarks about links between the Muslim community and terrorism that may encourage hatred towards Australian Muslims, a tribunal has found.
In an appearance in 2016, Kruger said there was a “correlation between the number of people who, you know, are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks”.
The civil and administrative tribunal of New South Wales found some ordinary members of the Australian population “already harbour feelings of hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims as a whole by reason of the assumption that they are potential terrorists or sympathisers of terrorism”.
“In our view, such remarks would likely encourage hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population.”
However, the complaint was dismissed and Kruger was not found guilty of racial vilification because the Muslim community in Australia does not have “a common ethno-religious origin”.
Kruger and her employer declined to comment on the decision but after the backlash to the broadcast the Voice host said she had “complete respect for people of all races and religions”.
“I acknowledge my views yesterday may have been extreme. The reaction over night in the papers, online and via social media demonstrates that there are a myriad of opinions in Australia, which I fully appreciate. It is a hugely complex and sensitive issue, it’s an issue with no simple answer and it’s an issue that cannot be fully discussed in a short televised segment.”
Two years ago the Today Extra host said she agreed with the views expressed by the Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt, who argued in a column “the more Muslims we import, the more danger we are in”.
“Personally I think Andrew Bolt has a point here,” Kruger said.
Kruger repeated Bolt’s claim that Muslim migration in France opens the door to terrorism, and said that Japan didn’t have many Muslims migrants so it had no terrorist attacks.
“I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do when they go out to celebrate Australia Day, and I’d like to see freedom of speech,” Kruger said.
But her remarks were challenged by her Today Extra co-host, David Campbell, who interjected: “I’d like to see freedom of religion as well, as well as freedom of speech. They both go hand in hand.”
A member of the Muslim community who has lived in Australia since 1960, Sam Ekermawi, lodged a complaint with the Anti-Discrimination Board, but it was dismissed on the same grounds, that Muslims in Australia were not a racial group.
The tribunal rejected Nine’s claim that Kruger’s remarks were “reasonable”.
“She expressed the view that the size of Australia’s Muslim population meant there should be no further Muslim migration irrespective of any other matter. This appears to be unsupported by any evidence or material placed before the tribunal,” the judgment said.
“The principal difficulty we have with Ms Kruger’s comments is that she suggests that 500,000 “Australian Muslims” is too many and that, in and of itself, such a number of Muslims living in Australia poses a safety threat to persons in Australia. Consistently with this proposition, Ms Kruger concludes that all Muslim migration should be stopped because any addition to the number of Muslims in Australia increases the risk of terrorist attacks.”
The judgment said that her comments were “beyond simply a fair report of Andrew Bolt’s article. She provided her own views and commentary on the issues and these additions were not just opinion, they were vilifying remarks in their own right”.
The tribunal agreed with Nine that Kruger’s tone was “calm and measured”.
“She did use the term ‘fanatics’ and made it clear she did not think every Muslim in Australia or overseas was a fanatic,” the tribunal said. “She did say some of her best friends were peace-loving Muslims.”