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  • 2006-04-04 (xsd:date)
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  • Did an Australian Prime Minister Nudge Muslims to Leave? (en)
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  • We received this email in the Snopes inbox in 2005: Variations: A January 2008 variant combined elements of this piece with a 2001 editorial about immigrants written by a U.S. Air Force veteran, creating the misleading impression that the hybrid version reflected a speech given by Australian prime minister John Howard. A February 2009 variant attributed the entire combined version to Kevin Rudd, who succeeded John Howard as Australia's prime minister in 2007, and a 2010 variant attributed elements of both to Julia Gillard, who succeeded Kevin Rudd in June 2010. Origins: The July 2005 London Tube bombings raised domestic terrorism concerns in countries with large immigrant Muslim populations, such as Australia. The following month, Australian prime minister John Howard held a two-hour summit with moderate Muslim leaders in Canberra to work on a national strategy for addressing intolerance and the promotion of violence, during which issues such as the curriculum of Islamic schools and suggested measures for vetting imams were discussed. The Christian Science Monitor noted of the event: Prime Minister Howard also publicly announced his intent to have Australian intelligence agencies target mosques and Islamic schools in an effort to stamp out homegrown terrorism and extremists: The issue of the integration of Muslims into Australian society prompted controversial remarks by some Australian cabinet ministers, such as this exchange between Treasurer Peter Costello and host Tony Jones on the Lateline television news program on 23 August 2005: Likewise, Education minister Dr. Brendan Nelson offered his opinion that those who do not accept and teach Australian values should leave the country: The individual statements attributed to Australian government officials included in the e-mail reproduced at the head of this page are thus essentially accurate, but the selectively-quoted excerpts of controversial material from different news stories create the misleading overall impression that Australia enacted a formal policy to force some Muslim groups out of the country. The statements quoted were part of the public debate over an issue that flared briefly in the immediate aftermath of the London Tube bombings, then quietly subsided. Subsequent versions of this item have been altered to replace the names of out-of-office politicians with their modern counterparts (e.g., Kevin Rudd for John Howard, Julia Gillard for Kevin Rudd), thereby attributing words and thoughts to people who did not express them. (en)
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