Muslim groups in Australia on Friday criticised the disparity in the police response to two stabbing attacks in Sydney this month, saying it had created a perception of a double standard and further alienated the country’s minority Muslim community.
The Australian National Imams Council said an attack at a Bondi Junction shopping centre was “quickly deemed a mental health issue” while the stabbing of a Christian bishop at a Sydney church two days later was “classified as a terrorist act almost immediately”.
“The differing treatments of two recent violent incidents are stark,” the council’s spokeswoman, Ramia Abdo Sultan, said in a statement with the Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network.
“Such disparities in response create a perception of a double standard in law enforcement and judicial processes,” she added.
A 16-year-old boy is accused of repeatedly stabbing Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and a priest at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church on April 15, two days after the Bondi Junction attack, in which six people were killed and a dozen others seriously wounded by a lone assailant with a history of mental illness.
The boy was charged last week with committing a terrorist act, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Five teenage boys aged from 14 to 17 have also been charged with terrorism offences in connection with the church stabbings.
They were among seven arrested in a series of highly publicised raids across southwest Sydney in a major operation by the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team.
The boys, who are accused of following a violent extremist religious ideology, appeared in a Sydney children’s court on Thursday, with only the 14-year-old being granted bail.
He was still in custody on Friday, pending an appeal.
Ms Sultan called for an inquiry into the processes leading up to the police raids to ensure transparency and accountability within the judicial system and to prevent marginalisation of different ethnic and religious groups.
“We must also address the problematic and longstanding issue of racial and religious profiling, which has been part of the societal fabric for decades,” she said.
“The presumption that terrorism is inherently tied to religion is not only inaccurate but harmful.”
New South Wales state Premier Chris Minns agreed that it was important for allegations of terrorism to be correctly made but rejected any need for changes.
“The truth of the matter is, in some instances and it’s only some instances where there are terrorist activities, they are as a result of religious-based extremism,” Mr Minns said at a news conference in Sydney on Friday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel