Responding to the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), which had lodged a complaint about the new hate speech laws, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said they will not impinge upon Muslim religious leaders’ ability to criticise foreign governments or political ideologies.

Before the laws were passed last month, concerns were raised about whether the listing of “hate groups” might be a means to suppress the pro-Palestinian movement and stamp out criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

INAC president Imam Shadi Alsuleiman had written to Rowland concerned that the new laws prevented criticism of Israel and Zionism, the political doctrine for its settler-colonial project.

The reply letter addressed to Alsuleiman, reports the Sydney Morning Herald, was co-signed by home affairs minister Tony Burke.

The ministers’ suggestion in their letter that Muslim clerics and the general public can criticise Israel runs counter to how Rowland had explained the law to the ABC’s 7.30.

Rowland and Burke’s confirmation that criticising Israel and Zionism will not fall foul of the law appears problematic because the new hate group laws are so broad; there is no guarantee that criticising a political entity is protected if it is to be considered by some to be a part of a religious identity.

The ministers’ letter to the ANIC provides false assurance. Labor might be able to ensure one reading of the law, but another government may take a different view.

Rowland and Burke’s letter states that various hate crime measures in........

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