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Backlash of hate crimes against Muslims after anti-terror raids

We are the ones being terrorised, Muslims say




Backlash of hate crimes against Muslims after anti-terror raids

We are the ones being terrorised, Muslims say

September 21, 2014

(Translation of this article appears in Arabic section)

Australia: A car has been damaged and daubed with offensive comments, threatening letters have been sent and women have been abused in the street.

A backlash of hate crimes against the Muslim community after the police raids last week has also sparked a rash of social media comments such as "this is how they should deal with them", "behead them all", "give them a taste of their own medicine for a change" and "we just need to blow up parramatta n bankstown".

One of the founders of the Australian Arabic Council and human rights activist Joseph Wakim said "everyone should remember that no faith tells you to harm innocent people".

"It is not open season on Muslims," Mr Wakim said. "It is not OK to go Muslim-bashing.

"The raids were about stopping people feared to be terrorists, yet it is the Muslim people who are being terrorised."

Mr Wakim, a former Victorian multicultural affairs commissioner, has reminded Australians to learn from history and not to make the same mistakes, in particular by treating one group as "collectively guilty".

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been felt around the country and people are reporting graffiti on mosques and attacks on homes. Threatening letters have been sent to businesses, bookshops and religious leaders with handwritten messages such as "we will fight you ... terror for terror ... blood for blood and ... bomb for bomb".

NSW Police Superintendent Mark Walton said officers would not "stand guard" outside mosques that received bomb threats, purportedly from the Australian Defence League.

He said that, other than the letter from the league, there were no credible threats to security being investigated during Operation Hammerhead, a NSW operation to increase police visibility that was launched after terrorism raids on Thursday.

The Australian National Imams Council expressed anger that one of its most senior members, an assistant to the Grand Mufti of Australia Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, was pulled up at Sydney airport on Thursday on the way to the Haj, a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

The Imam, who met Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis recently, was stopped at the boarding gate, stripped of his mobile phone and iPad and kept in a room for two hours without explanation, the general manager of ANIC Samir Bennegadi said.

Mr Bennegadi said the Imam was treated in an unprofessional manner and he wondered, if this could happen to one of the most senior Imams in Australia, what could happen to the rest of the Muslim population when, "especially during this time, the Haj, we have hundreds of people leaving Australia every day".

Rebecca Kay, the secretary of Salam Care, a community services group, said it also feared being the targets of a raid.

"I know some women who have slept in their headscarves just in case," she said.

Ms Kay was collating reports of hate crimes, including harassment, abuse or being targeted, to present to the Human Rights Commission.

"We had some Aussie ladies standing making gun movements with their fingers towards some Muslim ladies," she said. "It is trivial, but it does affect people."

Ms Kay said the complaints were coming from across the western suburbs. "They seem to be more upset at first rather than scared," Ms Kay said.

"But then they do get scared that it might happen again, and they start worrying about whether they need to protect their children."

Baird government to back terrorism laws

September 21, 2014

Baird government to back terrorism laws

Preventative detention powers used for the first time after terrorism raids last week were to lapse because NSW Police had complained they were "unworkable" and hadn't been used in a decade.

Instead, the Abbott government had now won the states' backing to renew the power for another 10 years.

"NSW has supported the changes to the current tranche of Commonwealth terrorism laws that are due to be introduced into federal Parliament," said a spokeswoman for NSW Attorney-General Brad Hazzard.

Legislation would be introduced to the Senate on Wednesday that extended the sunset clause on preventative detention orders, which could only be used if a terrorist threat was imminent.

The states handed power to the Commonwealth to make terrorism laws in 2004, but the Commonwealth terrorism regime could only be changed after consultation with and the approval of a majority of states. The Victorian government had given in-principle agreement.

A NSW government review of police terrorism powers last August had predicted preventative detention orders would be repealed, or allowed to lapse next year because they had never been used and police said they were unworkable.

The NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour was told by NSW Counter Terrorism Command that NSW Police didn't want to use preventative detention orders because they exposed officers to criminal sanctions and prevented suspects from being questioned while detained.

They said the custody requirements of preventative detention were considerably different, and police unfamiliar with the law might fail to perform an action and that would result in them being liable for a criminal offence.

The Counter Terrorism Command told the ombudsman in 2011 that NSW Police was "opposed to the imposition of criminal sanctions upon police officers who would only be performing their duty", and indicated the sanctions were "overly proscriptive and unnecessary".

The prohibition on questioning detainees or even taking fingerprints was a major obstacle, Counter Terrorism Command said.

Mr Barbour told the NSW government there was a "strong case" to allow the powers to lapse next year if they remained unused.

The first orders were issued by a NSW Supreme Court judge on Wednesday, leading to three men being held for 36 hours by NSW Police after terrorism raids.

Federal Attorney-General George Brandis said on Saturday the Australian Federal Police had separately requested on Thursday that the federal government introduce expedited control orders for "very urgent" cases.

Control orders were previously used against David Hicks and Jack Thomas. Control orders were more flexible than preventative detention orders, which could only be used if a terrorism threat was likely within 14 days.

Ugly scenes at Sunshine Coast mosque protest

September 20, 2014

Police were forced to close streets as Mosque protesters clashed on the Sunshine Coast.Police had to keep anti mosque protesters and supporters apart at an emotion-charged rally on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday.

Police were forced to close streets as Mosque protesters clashed on the Sunshine Coast. Photo: Mark Furler

More than 500 people - about 80% of them against the Islamic mosque - converged on land near the Stella Maris Catholic Church to protest the mosque plan.

Supporters of the mosque sang iconic Australian tunes, prompting outrage from a few of the anti mosque movement.

Streets around the protest were blocked off by police while plain clothes and uniform police had to repeatedly warn anti-mosque protesters to tone their comments and anger down.

An equally vocal contingent of young people defended the right of Islamic people to set up their own church, saying Australia was a democratic country.

For more go to Sunshine Coast Daily.


 














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