Festival Hall should have called Hussain's bluff. So much Islamic rhetoric is based on hyperbole and exaggeration. This is how they intimidate and control other Muslims who believe what they say to be true.

They might be able frighten Muslims but they should not frighten legitimate businesses. It is not what they say that matters but what they do. Let them have the freedom to say what they like but threats are not actions and we should not be controlled by their threats.

This is where the fight against Islam has to be fought - in day to day ordinary battles. The more we stand up to this kind of bluster the less effective it becomes.

In Australia they are welcome to protest all they like but we have laws and rules which govern protests. They won't get away with the mayhem that they might in undemocratic fundamentalist countries. We already have in place the structures to safeguard our freedoms but if we allow ourselves to be manipulated by these drama queens then we have only ourselves to blame.

“A country can have the most liberal freedom of speech and association laws in the world, but if its citizens are not animated by the spirit of the laws, if they do not believe in them, then these laws are a dead letter.”

So true, and Australians are too self-centred and apathetic to believe in anything, any more. If they were different, we would not have the totalitarian, anti-free speech, Section 18c of the HRC; we would not have the HRC, but rely on the common law that we have.

Australians are ripe for take over and oppression!

The threat of 5,000 scabby pro-Islam protesters? Real men and women would have countered with 10,000 protesters. Just not in Australia. In Australia, the population has already surrendered to Islamic threats, and the 'authorities' and organisers of events and venues know this and are not going to stick their necks out for people who do not care about their own freedom and safety. Too busy whining about SSM, house prices and the cost of child care.

All together now: 'Australia is rooted'.

It is amazing to find such common-sense in an academic. Three cheers for  Stephen Chavura!

if you look at how nutty the jacobin revolution was, it was silly to ever buy into their 'values'. But we live and learn.

2 things, don't agree that the gay community are suppressing anyones right to speak! Just the usual highly flawed and hugely offensive homophobia and inequality before the law!

Conversely, the only ones apparently offended by fearless and frank dialogue, or the plain unvarnished truth, are mainly Muslims, with entrenched unproven/unprovable medieval belief systems, white supremacists, the anti gay brigade, reverse apartheid supporters or idealogues of the far right? Austral otherwise stands out as a bastion of free speech and telling it like it is!
Alan B.

Correction, Austral should read Australia.
Apologies. Alan B.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, all powerful international organisations, see her as a dangerous enemy and are determined to silence her. They have enlisted allies, on the so-called Left, who insist that criticism of Islam is a “neo-colonial” phenomenon and should be denounced as racist and bigoted. This shameful alliance of conservative Muslims and self-styled Leftist “progressives” has been conducting a campaign to attack, discredit and silence Ali. And her response: “The radical Islamists and the Leftie idiots who align with the Islamists, they’re becoming more shrill, and that’s because they’re being more exposed,”