Source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/nationa...o-1226078914795

Muslim woman accused of making false police statement avoids jail over identity doubt

By Paul Kent From: The Daily Telegraph June 21, 2011 12:00AM

THE Muslim woman accused of lying about police trying to tear her burqa off has avoided jail - because her identity could not be proven.

Carnita Matthews, 47, from Woodbine, in Sydney's southwest, had been sentenced to six months in jail for making a deliberately false statement that a policeman tried to forcibly remove her burqa because he was a racist.

But judge Clive Jeffreys said yesterday he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it was Mrs Matthews who made the racism accusation because the person who complained to police was wearing a burqa at the time.

The absurdity of the law is that, to reach the level of proof of identity to make the case, Mrs Matthews would have been required to identify herself by lifting her burqa at the police station - what started the uproar in the first place.

More than a dozen Muslim supporters linked arms and began chanting "Allah Akbar" as they stormed out of Downing Centre Court with Mrs Matthews concealed behind them.

Tempers rose and they began jostling with police after several members of the group attacked cameramen.

It marked a stark difference from their behaviour minutes earlier, when they had quietly assembled outside the lifts for prayer shortly after the judge's decision.

Mrs Matthew's lawyer Stephen Hopper defended their actions saying: "They are obviously happy with the result and are expressing it in a way that is culturally appropriate to them."

Judge Jeffreys said yesterday that even if Mrs Matthews had made the complaint, he could not be sure she knew it was a "false" statement.

"I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that she made the complaint," he said.

"Even if I was satisfied that she made the complaint, I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it was knowingly false."

Mrs Matthews made the claim in her court appearance last year, saying police could not prove it was her behind the burqa when the complaint was handed in to police. The local magistrate rejected it.

The case had lit up the religious debate when a magistrate found Mrs Matthews had deliberately made false complaints that Sergeant Paul Kearney was racist and had attempted to tear her burqa off her face when she declined to remove it on request.

She was pulled over for a random breath test last June, and accused Sgt Kearney of racism only after he booked her for failing to properly display her P-plates.

The incident was captured on a patrol car video camera and helped clear Sgt Kearney, prompting calls for all police cars to carry in-built cameras to avoid false claims.

"I've got my P-plates on my car ... there was nothing wrong with how they were displayed," Mrs Matthews says on the video.

"You look at me and see me wearing this and you couldn't handle it. All cops are racist."

She then threatens, "100 per cent", that she will take the matter to court and fight the charge.



For more on the Muslim woman accused of lying about police trying to tear her burqa off go to The Daily Telegraph:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydn...i-1226078800517

Is Mrs Matthews a white Australian female or an Arab immigrant married to a local white Australian man?
If she is a white Australian female, she is creating mischief and should be sent to Singapore for flogging.

No one could tell because she is 'allowed' to cover up head to toe. But now she is seeking compensation. So the moral of this incident is in OZ, due to PC if you are a Muslima, you can cover up except your eye balls and then intimidate, lie and make false statement and still get off scot free!! BUT only if you are an adherant of Islam, the state will support your rights under the freedom of religion and of course multiculturalism. What's with your obsession for flogging? They regularly do that in Bolehland too. Do you think it is better than beheading?

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/burqa...6-1226080347298
Burqa-wearing woman Carnita Matthews to seek legal costs.

By Amy Dale - From: The Daily Telegraph - June 23, 2011 7:44AM

THE woman who won an appeal over her conviction for making a deliberately false statement that a policeman tried to lift her burqa will now seek legal costs.

Carnita Matthews, 47, was sentenced to six months jail for making a deliberately false statement that a policeman tried to lift her burqa.

In June last year, she was pulled over for a random breath test but went on to accuse the police officer of racism when he booked her for failing to display her P-plates.

She was charged with making a false complaint at Campbelltown police station but Judge Clive Jeffreys this week quashed her conviction, saying identity could not be proven.

Judge Jeffreys said that the prosecution had failed to prove two aspects of the charge "beyond a reasonable doubt".

He said there wasn't enough evidence it was Ms Matthews who handed in the written complaint at Sydney's Campbelltown police station and, even if it were, there wasn't enough evidence to prove that she "intentionally, deliberately and purposefully" made a false complaint.

A factor that the prosecution had relied on was the fact the signature on the statutory declaration matched that on Ms Matthew's licence, but Mr Jeffreys said he thought there were "a number of differences" between the two.

As Judge Jeffreys yesterday delivered his reason for upholding Ms Matthews' appeal, her legal team indicated that they would apply for costs.

Ms Matthews' lawyer Stephen Hopper said a costs application would be filed.

"We haven't calculated all of that yet (but) our costs are fairly modest because both (Ms Matthews's barrister Phillip Boulten SC) and I did it at a reduced fee because of Mrs Matthews' circumstances," Mr Hopper said.


Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opin...0-1226080140537

Lift the burqa on cowardly extremism

THE preposterous excuses and Pythonesque theatrics of Carnita Matthews and her thuggish supporters outside the Downing Centre Courts this week would be comic, if they weren't so threatening.

The 46-year-old mother of seven, wearing a full black niqab showing just her eyes, has successfully tied the justice system up in knots for the past year, simply to avoid paying a $197 traffic fine.

Described as being "deliberately malicious and ... ruthless" by the magistrate who convicted her last November of falsely claiming a "racist" police officer tried to tear off her veil during a random breath test, Matthews escaped her six-month jail sentence on appeal before the District Court.

Ironically, appeal Judge Clive Jeffreys could not be certain beyond reasonable doubt it was Matthews who had lodged the complaint against Senior Constable Paul Fogarty, because (drum roll) she was wearing the niqab when she arrived at Campbelltown police station last June.

"All we know is that a person with a black burqa came in with a man in a brown suit with an envelope and that's it," he said.

But somebody lied about Sen-Constable Fogarty, whose innocence and restraint in the face of Matthews' screeching provocation were evident on the 20-minute in-car police video, without which his career would have been in jeopardy.

The prosecution was unable to satisfy Judge Jeffreys that the liar was Matthews, despite the fact her friend, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, alleged to radio 2GB's Chris Smith on Tuesday that he had accompanied her to the police station to lodge the complaint. As well, Channel 7 has footage of Matthews allegedly signing a statutory declaration and driving to the police station.

Maybe the case was too hot to handle. It grew from a simple traffic fine for a woman with a string of driving offences, to a core test of political Islam: Whether a veiled Muslim woman has the right to refuse a police officer's lawful request that she identify herself.

The answer is no.

That right does not exist under our law.

But that doesn't stop Islamist activists pushing for it, as if it is their due.

Regardless of who signed the false complaint against Sen-Constable Fogarty, it was the intimidating behaviour of Matthews' male supporters outside court this week which was most offensive.

The bearded men who chanted "Allah Akbar" (God is Great) as they marched roughshod on cameramen weren't behaving normally.

Their theatrics were a declaration of war on Australia, on the media, on police.

Linking arms and striding down the street chanting the phrase we have heard again and again - often in the wake of other appalling crimes - was a show of power by people who put the authority of their God above the law of the land.
It is a direct challenge to Australian law and order.

We increasingly see the same challenge issued whenever a hardline Islamist appears in court, as the call goes out for "brothers" to run "protection" for the accused.

A man claiming to be Matthews' husband sent out the call on his Facebook page this week and later thanked: "ALL THE HERO'S (sic) AND LIONS OF ALLAH WHOM (sic) HAD THE CHANCE TO COME TO THE COURT AND FIGHT FOR THE SAKE OF ALLAH ... ALLAH HAS GRANTED YOUR OPPRESSED SISTER VICTORY OVER HIS ENEMIES AND HE GRANTED US A JUDGE THAT FROM THE WORD GO HE WAS DEFENDING YOUR SISTER WHERE EVERYONE ELSE WAS DETERMINED TO SEE HER JAILED, BUT ALLAH HAD OTHER PLANS".

His Facebook page, with the profile picture of a bloodied fist replaced yesterday by a handcuffed figure in a burqa, has messages from supporters such as: "Allah akbar, may all the pigs burn in hell inshallah".

It features videos of Osama bin Laden, slurs against infidels and "Kufaars" (non-Muslims), "American pig savages" and "Zionist dogs". Last weekend Ibrahim wrote: "YA ZIONIST DOGS THERE WILL BE A DAY VERY SOON THAT YOULL FIND NO SHELTR NOR A WALL TO HIND (sic) BEHIND AND WE WILL EAT YOUR FLESH AND SPIT IT TO OUR DOGS TO CHEW OFF."

And this: "HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO STAY WEAK, NO MORe MR NICE GUY, WE WILL DEFEND OUR iSLAM AND OUR SISTERS WITH OUR BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD."

A video also appears with the title "8 US soldiers killed in Iraq" accompanied by the message from Ibrahim: "Keep them Comming (sic)".

Another video, since removed, said: "WATCH THE AMERICAN PIGS THE AUSSIE PIGS THE BRITISH PIGS SOLDIERS RAPING YOUR MUSLIM SISTER".

There is also, ominously, talk on the page about disrupting a coming rally in Sydney by the Australian Defence League, an anti-Islamist group.

Police had to shut down a similar protest against sharia law in Melbourne last month after violent clashes.

On Ibrahim's website there is one lone brave voice of reason, from a woman he refers to as "Philosopha Phatoom".

"The way u men handled this is very wrong. may Allah take away this hated and anger from ur hearts," she wrote yesterday. "I'm not judging ... i can only assure u that setting an example of islam is not that way ... Remember Islam was never spread by the sword, it caught peoples Hearts."

The vast majority of moderate Muslims in Australia want no truck with Islamist ideology. It is for them, as much as for the rest of the community, that Premier Barry O'Farrell and Police Minister Mike Gallacher need to send a firm message that no one is above the law.

The burqa or niqab, as several Muslims have pointed out this week, is not a requirement of the Koran, which advises women only to dress modestly. But it has become a potent symbol of political Islam.

Gallacher has flagged a law change to allow Muslim women to use fingerprints to verify their identity as an alternative to lifting their veils, but he needs to avoid creating special laws for any particular group.

Australia is one of the most successful immigrant nations on Earth. It would therefore be a pity to follow the European path of banning Islamic face coverings, because the result would simply be more repression of women.

In order to safeguard freedoms - not least of Muslim women to wear the veil - then every challenge to this nation's authority must be countered whenever it arises.

Giving an inch to the intimidation of political Islam is a mistake.

The fact that she is Mrs Matthews tells me that she is a white woman creating mischief.
Only white women dare to take on cops. Australians are not as liberal as Americans.
I don't think muslim men would dare to take on cops in Australia.



Flogging is better. I would like to flog Mrs Matthews fat butt with a rattan.

I wouldn't assume as you do, many Lebanese has such strange family names. You are obviously have not been exposed to Muslim men or women in Oz. They are feared by a large cross section of the community and they are not afraid of anyone including the police. The racial riot a few years ago was started by young Muslims in Sydney West, they provoked and insulted the Anglos Aussie surfers and their girls, so a fight broke out and then the Muslims youth went rampaging all over Sydney. They are the minority but is much feared.


Can't really tell if she is fat under all that tent. But I note that you have a fetish with rattan and fat behind.

Ok, I watched the police video and others on the Matthews incident and am suprised that the Aussie policeman involved
was so polite in the face of verbal abuse. An American cop would have arrested her.



She is not fat and I could tell from the Indian accented Australian english that she probably emigrated from Pakistan. I don't have a fetish. I am Asian and know that western authorities are far too lenient. Her bad behavior stems from culture rather than from religion.

There are many who do, mostly youths though.


A few lebanese males were harassing girls at the beach and the life guards went down to aid the girls. A fight broke out and the life guards were assaulted. The riots were a stupid reaction to a stupid incident. It was further fueled by 2 TXT messages sent out to alot of people. One encourage Aussies to mass and fight back, the other encouraged Lebanese to mass and fight.

As for the topic, I dont understand how this woman was allowed a drivers license if she insisted on wearing a burqa.

That's surprising. I find it hard to picture anyone taking on cops in the US unless they are hardcore felons armed and violent. I have always thought that Aussies have a firmer hold on things given the fact that 92% of the population is white.
What's happening?



I don't understand why she was given Australian citizenship. Does she have some skill sorely needed in Australia?

White Australia has a firm handle on race relations you mean? i doubt so.. my little brother was was just walking around with his surfboard in Brisbane when he got head-butted by a white skin-head for no reason other than being an asian. He came home with a busted lip and almost a broken jaw.

That's exactly what I meant - they do have a firm handle on race relations in that way from the skin head beach comber
right up to the private banker. So, that burqa stuff is quite bizarre coming from down under. Even the effeminate French is tougher on the burqa. Haven't seen any in the US yet.