Negative coverage in The Age?

This is just awesome.
(Full link here [http://www.theage.com.au/national/local-muslim-clerics-accused-20081120-6ctp.html] because The Age doesn't have a stellar record at keeping archived articles or making it easier to search for them)

Clearly I don't believe that the misogynistic elements of a certain faith are "awesome", only that this story is reported on the front page of The Age. And that is awesome. Because our media organs are reporting some "uncomfortable" facts without couching it in multi-cultural-politically-correct-tolerance terms. The editorial board fight between the multi-culturalists and the feminists about covering this story would have been history-making. I'm glad the feminists won. I hope they keep winning.

It says women, community and legal workers and police involved in the consultation were particularly concerned about domestic violence, and suggested that imams aimed to preserve the family at the cost of women.

And a bit further on:

The report also cites sexual assault allegations connected with under-age marriages.

Note: this isn't in some backwater 3rd world middle eastern country. This is in Melbourne. Australia. OK, Shepparton is mentioned as well, but I still consider that part of Australia.

Community members quoted in the report believe that imams' narrow religious training in an increasingly complex world, lack of life experience, poor English and lack of understanding of Australia create problems for the community. For example, ill-informed comment by imams drew a wedge between the mainstream and Muslim communities.

Well...duh....

But we can't have this kind of reporting without some dissembling from the imams to make up the 'balance':

The secretary of the Board of Imams, Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam, said he could not understand how the council could write such a report and denied the complaints "absolutely".

"They must have heard stories here and there and are writing about them as though they are fact," he said.

Note that the report was using "community members" as the source for their stories, clearly members of the Islamic community in Melbourne. But Sheikh Fehmi denies them "absolutely". That's fine. The Sheikh's 'religion' denies "absolutely" the separation of Church and State, which works for us quite fine thank you, so clearly denial runs deep (and not a river in Egypt).

The fact that this report was commissioned by the Howard Government and reported positively on the cover of The Age may force me to rethink my opinions of this left-wing propaganda leaflet broadsheet.

Here's some further (slightly nicer) coverage on the Sheikh and his faith:

"Cleric vows to end segregation in mosques"
<http://www.theage.com.au/national/cleric-vows-to-end-segregation-in-mosques-20081121-6e4u.html>

Good luck with that...