When Costello, Ruddock, Reith, Slipper and Anderson all link the asylum seekers to terrorists while Howard piously denounces attacks on Muslims, there seems to be very little 'inadvertent' about it.
Trudy ABC News Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:39 AEST Govt inadvertantly sparked racial hatred: commissioner The New South Wales Community Relations Commission says it appears racial hatred is behind a spate of attacks against some Australians of Islamic faith. The Commission says the attacks have been made worse by the Federal Government's indirect linking of asylum seekers with possible security threats. Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian says a state-wide telephone hotline, started two days after events in the United States, has received more than 300 telephone calls for help. Most of the calls have come from Australia's Islamic community. He says there are reports of verbal and even physical abuse. "We had a case of two Muslim women, a mother and a daughter, who've had their headdress pulled off in Riverwood [and] kicked to the ground by a group of men and women to the extent that she broke her arm," he said. Mr Kerkyasharian says while inadvertent, the Federal Government's claims asylum seekers pose a security threat to Australia has led to a climate where some people link those asylum seekers to events in the US. "It is ridiculous, it is preposterous, it is divisive and it is damaging our society," he said. © 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/daily/newsnat-25sep2001-84.htm -- ***************************** Join the peoples' movement: The Australian Reconciliation Party http://www.green.net.au/arp/ ***************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/ until 11 March, 2001 and Recoznettwo is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznettwo%40green.net.au/ from that date. This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
