INCREASE IN REPORTS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA
Their concerns are not unfounded. Reports of Islamophobia in Australia have increased following the Dec 14 shooting.
The Islamophobia Register Australia, a community organisation that monitors and reports such incidents in the country, received 126 reports of hate incidents in the week after the shooting. This was a 10-fold increase compared with the previous two weeks.
Separately, the Australian National Imams Council also reported an increase. On Dec 29, the council said in a statement that nine mosques and Islamic study centres in Australia had reported acts of vandalism or serious security incidents requiring police involvement.
These included hate graffiti at Melbourne Islamic School, pieces of pork thrown into a Muslim cemetery in Narellan, New South Wales, as well as incidents in which Muslim women were spat on, verbally abused and threatened in Perth, Western Australia.
Disinformation about Islam and Muslims has also surged on social media, according to the Australian Associated Press (AAP) Fact Check.
For instance, an old video resurfaced showing a group of people at a protest in Sydney in October 2023 chanting “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is the greatest” in English). It was recirculated across social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X in the week following the attack.
“(It was) an old video of a group of people attending a protest (that) was taken out of context,” said Sara Cheikh Husain, an Australia-based expert on Islamophobia and author of the book “The Politics of Anti-Islamophobia in Australia: The Case of Muslim Community Organisations”, in a written interview with CNA Indonesia.
“The reposts of this video and other similar appropriated content of pro-Palestine gatherings, held similar Islamophobic messages describing Muslims in Australia as angry men, Hamas supporters, and refugees celebrating the Bondi shooting,” she said.
According to Ridlwan Habib, a terrorism and intelligence observer from the University of Indonesia, Islamophobia in Australia is not a new phenomenon that emerged solely from the Bondi Beach attack. He said the issue has deep roots and is part of a broader context, including the involvement of some Australian Muslims in global extremist networks.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/bondi-beach-attack-fuel-islamophobia-australia-indonesians-worried-5817221
