Comedian Adam Hills has hit back at those who have criticised him for defending Muslim people following the dealy terror attacks in Paris which killed 129 people, which were carried out by extremists linked to Isis.
The Australian presenter of Channel 4's The Last Leg said in a Facebook post that while he was an “unfunny leftie wanker” he was “not traitor” to his country, and stood by his support for Muslims around the world.
Mr Hill was initially criticised for his response to a tweet by Australian MP Pauline Hanson in which she argued that “not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim”.
The comedian jokingly tweeted that: “Australia would send a better message to the world if we just hung Pauline Hanson from the Sydney Harbour Bridge.”
The message sparked outrage as some Twitter users misunderstood the comedian, and thought he meant that Ms Hanson should be “hanged” - the correct word to describe the form of execution - instead of “hung” in a comical manner with a harness device.
“So here is what I do not think: I do not think Pauline Hanson, or anyone, should be executed, and hanged from any Australian icon, let alone the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I do not condone violence against women. I do not support the s***heads that call themselves ISIS,” wrote Mr Hill.
He went on to argue that Ms Hanson’s statement was “divisive, ill-advised, and simply not true.”
“If I plead guilty to anything yesterday, it is of making a clumsy joke,” he said.
The post on Mr Hills official Facebook page was shared more than 23,000 times, however a later post urging people to ridicule Isis garnered over 50,000 shares.
Recalling how politicians at an Australian High Commission drinks function in London had explained to him that Isis relies on non-Muslims turning against Muslims in order to push vulnerable young people into their hands, he said it was at that point he decided to publicly ridicule the group.
“It seemed to me that a good way of combatting this [Isis] would be 1) be nice to non-ISIS related Muslims (ie the vast majority of Muslims) and 2) make ISIS look like idiots,” he wrote.
Mr Hills went on to defend why he has renamed Isis “Cystitis” on his The Last Leg programme and has chosen to defend Muslim people.
“We played Cystisis training videos with the Benny Hill music over the top. We celebrated the young girls who defrauded them out of thousands of dollars. We made our own ads for the caliphate, in which we clearly mocked them.”
“In amongst all this, I did my best to remind our viewers that Cystisis are interpreting the Islamic faith in a highly extreme, and self-serving way, and that the vast, vast, vast majority of Muslims – around 99.997 per cent – disapprove of them.”
“I did all this, not because I am a hippy dippy idealist who believes that fairy wings and puppy dog farts can change the world. I did this because I was advised by representatives of my government who are way smarter than I am, that it was the right thing to do.
“I might be an unfunny leftie wanker, but I’m no traitor.”
