Hate case judge assures Americans no one is going to prison

A Victorian judge has reassured Americans that the Christian respondents in the state's first religious hate case do not face jail.

Judge Michael Higgins told a tribunal yesterday he had received a call from the Department of Foreign Affairs over concerns about the case raised in a "considerable" number of emails from Americans.

Both sides in the case, the first brought under Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, say it has attracted interest in Muslim countries as well as in the West.

The Islamic Council of Victoria has alleged that Catch the Fire Ministries, Pastor Danny Nalliah and speaker Daniel Scot had vilified Muslims at a Melbourne seminar last year.

Judge Higgins, in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, said that Foreign Affairs had rung him after being contacted by the US embassy. "They were concerned about emails forwarded to the US asserting that these proceedings are ones in which individuals could be subject to terms of imprisonment. I indicated that this is not so, that these are civil proceedings, and imprisonment will play no part."

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/29/1067233246916.html

They like to get involved in everybody's affairs.

just kidding