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Australian Politicians Foster Hatred Against Muslims
SYDNEY, Aug 23 (News Agencies) - Extremist political firebrand Pauline Hanson attacked Muslim immigrants in Australia, as ethnic communities said Thursday that political leaders here were nurturing racial hatred.
As Arab and Asian community representatives met to publicly challenge accusations of an ethnically-based crime wave sweeping Sydney, public anger over a series of premeditated sexual assaults on caucasian women continued to simmer.
Hanson, reviled by Muslims for her verbal aggression towards them - having accused Muslims of having little respect for Australian society - re-entered the immigration debate here as three Lebanese youths were jailed for the sexual assaults of two teenage girls.
The youths were charged as juveniles and cannot be identified.
While sentencing the three for up to six years imprisonment, District Court Judge Megan Latham said one of them maintained "an assertion that he was not familiar with the laws of Australia and that he was unaware that his behavior towards [the victims] was criminal."
Police here have now charged 18 youths of Middle Eastern descent in connection with what police said were racially motivated gang rapes in Sydney's predominantly working-class southwestern suburbs.
The controversy first surfaced after media revelations that young caucasian women had been targeted in dozens of gang rape attacks allegedly committed by Muslim youths.
Against the background of an ethnic leaders summit in the New South Wales parliament complex, Hanson, who leads the anti-immigration One Nation political party, accused Muslim immigrants of attempting to impose Islamic culture on Australia.
It wasn't clear why Hanson drew a link between Islam, a religion that bans any form of sex outside marriage, and the recent rape cases.
"A lot of these people are Muslims - they have no respect for the Christian way of life that this country is based on," she told the
Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
New South Wales Prime Minister Bob Carr has publicly blamed the rise of ethnic gangs for an escalation in violent crime, which includes heroin trafficking, murder and racially motivated rape.
"The fact is... one part of the crime problem we face as a community, is based on the recruitment of ethnic communities," Carr said. "I want us to face up to that."
Australia's immigrant population, especially arrivals from Arabic-speaking countries and Asia, now fear a racist backlash.
Chinese-born state MP, Peter Wong, who convened Thursday's meeting, accused Carr of fostering racial hatred and employing the same tactics as Hanson by typecasting migrants as more likely to commit violent crimes.
Wong said that the so-called "ethnic crime wave" was a myth. But extensive media coverage of the rape investigation has led to an increase in racist abuse, including death threats, against immigrants.
Wong called on Carr "to state publicly that crime is not caused by ethnicity or migration."
"We cannot become the hub of the Asia-Pacific region while we denigrate migrants."
The issue arises with the recent arrival of 1,000 asylum seekers on Australia's northern coastline and a federal government campaign to stem the unauthorized arrival of so-called "boat people".
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