savethesheikh.com

Monsignor Labib Kobti is pastor of St Thomas Moore Catholic Church in San Fransisco and is a well-known human-rights advocte, particularly well-known for his advocacy work in the Middle East.  He is founder and director of Al-Bushra.org.

I, as a person from the Middle East, I know better than anybody what Islam is. Although I know that there are a lot of fanatic Muslim people, I found in the Sheikh a moderate one that can be used to be a bridge between the fanatic and the moderate. He can help Australia for the best.

Throwing out the good people is a lack of wisdom from the part of the Government. In the Middle East I found also a lot of fanatic Jewish who impose themselves on the governments and especially on the US Congress and Senate. I am sure that they do the same in Australia, they do it every where in the world.  I saw also Christian fanatics, like the Christian who call themselves Evangelical Zionists.

Treating all the same way that we treat the good Sheikh can show that we are working the same justice for all. Treating only the Muslims this weird way and forgetting or forgiving the others is racism against one group.

Msgn. Labib Kobti

June 3rd, 2010 – over 1000 of us gather at Parliament House, Canberra, to protest the pending deportation of Sheikh Mansour Leghaei.

Sheikh Mansour is to be deported without trial. Despite living peacefully for 16 years in Australia and raising a family of four children, the government is deporting him without giving him any explanation.

A brilliant article by Rick Feneley was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 1st in which the case against Sheikh Mansour Leghaei was exposed as baseless.

The article, Accusations Lost in Translation, chronicles a rather worrying list of accusations that have been made against the Sheikh – accusations that incriminate not only Mansour but his entire family.

Sheikh Mansour’s sister, for instance, is depicted as an agent of the Iranian government who walks the streets of Tehran with a walkie-talkie hidden under her veil, informing on women who dress immodestly. The detailed nature of the accusation would suggest that it must have some basis in reality, except that Mansour doesn’t have a sister!

Of course this is only one of a series of accusations about our Iranian Sheikh, but Feneley’s article brought to mind for me Anthonly Flew’s old dictum – that 100 leaking buckets hold no more water than one leaking bucket. Read it here.

The other news is that on Monday May 3rd Mansour was given yet another two week extension on his visa, to give more time to the Minister to make up his mind about his future. How long, O Lord, must we wait for justice?

After a negative security assessment that dates back 13 years, Sheikh Mansour Leghaei has finally been told to leave the country.

Father Dave asks Mansour about his history, from his arrival in Australia to his current struggle to keep his family united.