Farrokh Sekaleshfar, who toured Orlando in March and is set to give lectures in Sydney, preached that homosexual acts should be punishable by death

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The immigration department is reviewing the visa of a Shia Muslim cleric who toured Orlando in March and argues that homosexual acts are punishable by death under sharia law.

British-born medical doctor and preacher Farrokh Sekaleshfar is giving lectures throughout the Islamic holy month of Ramadan at the Imam Husain Islamic Centre in Sydney’s south-west.

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Sekaleshfar, who spoke in Orlando in March, told a Michigan audience in 2013 that “death is the sentence for homosexual acts” in Islam and this was “nothing to be embarrassed about”.



“We have to have that compassion for people. With homosexuals, it’s the same. Out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now,” he said in the lecture.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said on Tuesday that Sekaleshfar had a valid visa to Australia but that it was being reviewed at the request of the immigration minister, Peter Dutton.

“I can say to you we have zero tolerance for people to come to Australia who preach hatred. Zero tolerance,” Turnbull said.

“His visa is a legal matter and has to be dealt with in the appropriate way, but his visa is being reviewed at the request, the direction, I should say, of the minister, even as we speak.”

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Sekaleshfar has expressed “utmost, sincere condolences” to the friends and families of the 49 people killed in America’s deadliest mass shooting on Sunday, by a perpetrator claiming links to the militant group Islamic State.

He told Guardian Australia on Monday the point of his sermons was not that “any Tom, Dick and Harry go and exercise the sentence”, adding that it could only be carried out by the state in a country where “the majority of people want Islamic law to be exercised”.

“The death sentence isn’t against homosexuals, it’s about people who, in an Islamic country, go in public and commit the act of anal copulation,” he said. “It’s only relevant when you do that act in public.”

There is no suggestion that Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen attended Sekaleshfar’s lectures, or was influenced by his preaching. Isis consider Shia Muslims such as Sekaleshfar to be heretics.

The immigration department has previously cited character grounds to cancel or deny visas to the “pick-up artist” Julien Blanc, US anti-abortion campaigner Troy Newman and “neo-masculinist” Daryush Valizadeh, among others.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, questioned “how on earth [Sekaleshfar] got a visa”.



“Let’s call it straight: we’ve got a character test in our visas. I don’t see, if this person is here, and he’s said these things … how this fellow got a visa,” he said.

“I think the government needs to get on to it quick smart and this person, in my opinion, is not welcome in Australia holding those abhorrent views.”

Sekaleshfar’s Facebook page has been pulled since his presence in Sydney was first reported on Monday and his profile has been removed from the speakers list of the website of the Muslim Group of USA and Canada.



Sekaleshfar has been contacted for comment.