{"id":514597,"date":"2026-01-14T03:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/514597\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T03:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:27:13","slug":"sydney-prayer-hall-linked-to-radical-preacher-permanently-shuts-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/514597\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney prayer hall linked to radical preacher permanently shuts down"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\ufeffhe Al Madina Dawah Centre, a controversial prayer hall in Sydney<\/a>‘s south-west linked to the radical preacher Wissam Haddad, has permanently shut down.<\/p>\n

Today, \ufeffthe owners issued a short statement announcing: “Al Madina Dawah Centre is permanently closed.”<\/p>\n

\"AlAl Madina Dawah Centre which has been shut down by the council in Bankstown. (Dominic Lorrimer)<\/p>\n

A council investigation in December concluded the premises had only been approved to operate as a medical centre, and the owners never sought authorisation for it to run as a prayer hall. \ufeff<\/p>\n

“Our recent surveillance indicates there is a strong suspicion the premises is being used contrary to its intended use,” a council spokesperson said at the time.<\/p>\n

\ufeffAl Madina Dawah Centre has been criticised for its association with Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd.<\/p>\n

He was also found to have breached the Racial Discrimination Act for antisemitic lectures in the Federal Court<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n

Al Madina Dawah Centre, which came under new management in December, insisted Haddad held no management or decision-making authority at the centre and had only attended as an occasional guest speaker.<\/p>\n

\"IslamicIslamic preacher Wissam Haddad. (Edwina Pickles)<\/p>\n

It is not the first site forced to close due to its association with Haddad.<\/p>\n

Haddad was previously ordered to shut down unauthorised prayer meetings at a venue on Eldon Street in Georges Hall in 2023, which was only approved to operate as a gym.<\/p>\n

NSW<\/a> Premier Chris Minns said today’s permanent closure was “evidence of the changes that we’re proposing will work”, referring to a raft of new measures announced this week<\/a> to crack down on people operating public places of worship without proper planning approval as a way to clamp down on hate preachers from running “factories of hate”.<\/p>\n

“These are done behind closed doors, they’re not easy to identify, they’re very difficult to close down,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But increasingly, as a result of the broadcast or dissemination of individual sermons or lectures or hate spewed that we can identify, I don’t think the rules or laws have been fit for purpose to confront them in our communities.”<\/p>\n

Minns said he was “struck” when the \ufeffBankstown Council could only issue Al Madina Dawah Centre a nominal fine, as he confirmed one of the measures would be increased fines of up to $22,000 for individuals and $220,000 for corporations. \ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\ufeffhe Al Madina Dawah Centre, a controversial prayer hall in Sydney‘s south-west linked to the radical preacher Wissam…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":514598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-514597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115891329137738794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}