Dozens of anti-Muslim attacks as Islamic leaders warn of community fear
Oct 10
There have been at least 30 attacks on Muslims – mainly against women wearing the hijab – in the three weeks since the police anti-terror raids and threats by Islamic State put relations between the Islamic community and mainstream Australia on edge.
Muslim community leaders are compiling a register of religiously motivated incidents, which includes reports of physical and verbal assaults, threats of violence against senior clerics and damage to mosques.
They claim "mistrust" with police had led to the real rate of anti-Islamic episodes going unreported and the threat of segregation for women wearing the niqab into Parliament had licensed a new wave of people willing to vent against Muslim women in public in recent days.
Muslim groups have begun arranging escorts for women to go shopping.
While national security agencies have been boosted with almost $650 million in new funding, Muslim leaders are critical of the level of police resources put into stopping hate crimes at street level.
Among recorded incidents, a woman was threatened with having her hijab torn from her head and set alight, a cup of coffee was thrown through the car window of a woman driving in a hijab, and a pig's head and cross were thrown into the grounds of a Brisbane mosque.
A mother in western Sydney was spat on and had the pram carrying her baby kicked, according to the list of incidents compiled by the western Sydney-based Muslim Legal Network and the recently launched Islamophobia Register
A list of verbal attacks includes a Muslim mother in Melbourne who was warned to remove her child from playing with group of non-Muslim children at a play park.
At least four mosques have been targeted with written threats, graffiti and thrown objects. Queensland has the highest rate of personal assaults and threats to mosques, according to the list.
Solicitor Lydia Shelly, of the Muslim Legal Network, said: "We have noticed an increase in attacks against Muslim women in public places, of those who wear a scarf or a hijab.
"As a Muslim woman, I am very concerned that this is impacting on the rights or perhaps the freedom of movement for Muslim women, because they simply do not feel safe any more. We have had property defaced. We have had death threats issued to our spiritual leaders and threats to bomb the mosques and things like that."
Ahmed Kilani, who edits the online Muslim Village publication, said it was "pathetic" that NSW Police had a single officer, Sergeant Geoffrey Steer, dedicated to "bias-motivated crimes", the category that anti-Islamic attacks fit into.
A police spokesman disputed that, saying each local area command took responsibility for bias crimes. He said NSW Police "has met with senior Muslim community leaders on a regular basis since Operation Appleby".
Ertunc Ozen, chief executive of the Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance, said the focus on the attire worn by Muslim women was doing the work of the Islamic State by "telling our youth that they do not belong in this country and they never will"
It was also being used by "the more extreme elements in the broader Australian community who actually feel that Muslim people and Muslim thought are totally incompatible with the Australian way of life", he said.
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http://www.smh.com.au/national/dozens-of-antimuslim-attacks-as-islamic-leaders-warn-of-community-fea..."Do try and keep up "Peggy." ..interesting, same style of reply as another.
