Sonia Kruger DROPPED from podcast over Muslim immigration views

Sonia Kruger has been dropped from Mamamia’s beauty podcast, You Beauty.

As reported by The Daily Telegraph on Friday, administrators announced on Facebook that they have removed her episode this week on sensitive skin.

The lifestyle website informed followers that the decision was based on Kruger’s past comments relating to Muslim immigration, that some found to be ‘deeply hurtful’.

‘We have made the decision to take down the episode of You Beauty featuring Sonia Kruger,’ The Daily Telegraph revealed the Facebook post to have read.   

‘We want to thank you for your feedback and pointing out that Sonia’s past views on topics including Muslim immigration were deeply hurtful to so many people.

‘These views are something Mamamia would never endorse. We understand that some of you believed our inclusion of Sonia in this episode meant we condoned her views which is absolutely and utterly not the case.’ 

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Kruger’s management for comment. 

In February last year, a tribunal found Kruger, 54, vilified Muslims when she called for Australia to close its borders to followers of Islam because she ‘didn’t feel safe’.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal delivered their decision almost three years after Kruger’s explosive comments were made on the Today Show in July 2016.

The tribunal found Kruger’s ‘vilifying remarks’ had the ability to ‘encourage hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population’.  

Australian Muslim man Sam Ekermawi filed the complaint saying Channel Nine had vilified ‘ethnic Muslim Australians’. 

Kruger shocked former colleagues David Campbell and Lisa Wilkinson when she discussed a column written by conservative commentator Andrew Bolt following a terrorist attack in Nice on Bastille Day. 

‘I mean, personally, I think Andrew Bolt has a point here, that there is a correlation between the number of people who are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks,’ she said. 

‘Now I have a lot of very good friends who are Muslim, who are peace-loving who are beautiful people, but there are fanatics.

‘Personally I would like to see it (immigration) stopped now for Australia. Because I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do, when they go out to celebrate Australia Day.’

The tribunal decided Kruger was ‘calm and measured’ in her comments and believed she made it clear she did not think every Muslim person was a fanatic. 

‘Broadly, the Tribunal accepts that the purpose of the discussion in question was to have a debate about the size of the Australian Muslim population, the levels of Muslim migration and whether an increase in the level of either increases the likelihood of future terrorist attacks in Australia,’ the Tribunal said.

‘Further, the Tribunal accepts that to have a public discussion on such matters was in the public interest.’

While the tribunal accepted Kruger and Nine acted in good faith and without malice, they could not accept that her remarks were ‘reasonable’. 

‘The principal difficulty we have with Ms Kruger’s comments is that she suggests that 500,000 ‘Australian Muslims’ is too many and that, in and of itself, such a number of Muslims living in Australia poses a safety threat to persons in Australia,’ the Tribunal said.

‘Consistently with this proposition, Ms Kruger concludes that all Muslim migration should be stopped because any addition to the number of Muslims in Australia increases the risk of terrorist attacks.’

Kruger told her co-workers that Japan has a population of 174 million people and 100,000 Muslims and the country never suffers terrorist attacks. 

The Tribunal said Kruger’s view about the Australian Muslim population and future Muslim migration was unsupported by any evidence placed before the Tribunal.