Excerpt:
A Melbourne Islamic cleric has told his male followers they can force their wives to have sex and hit them if they are disobedient.
Coburg's self-styled cleric Samir Abu Hamza said despite Australian rape laws it was impossible for a man to rape his wife even if she refused to have sex with him.
In a recorded lecture entitled "The Keys to a Successful Marriage", delivered to his male worshippers but now broadcast on the internet and viewed by several thousand people, Mr Hamza said Islamic law allowed men to hit their wives as a last resort, but they were not to make them bleed or become bruised.
He said under Islamic law, as described in a koranic verse, it was a man's right to demand sex from his wife whenever he felt like it.