Brisbane, 10 Dzulqa’dah 1436/25 August 2015 (MINA) – A vile video by an Australian far-right group that targeted Brisbane mosques has been widely condemned by Muslim leaders as a part of a systematic campaign that aims to terrorize the Muslim community.
“These people are running a concentrated campaign and they want a reaction from us, that’s what they want,” spokesman for the Islamic Council of Queensland, Ali Kadri said, On Islam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
“To be honest, this whole thing is not taken seriously by police it seems. But it is terrorizing the Muslim community.”
Kadri was talking about the contemptuous video tour of Brisbane mosques by the Australian Defence League (ADL).
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Posted online on Monday, the video doubled Muslims’ fears, coinciding with receiving a hate mail as well as the gathering of unknown people in Holland Park mosque carparks for hours at night.
ADL’s error-riddled video showed one of its members called Chris who called that the Holland Park mosque an eyesore because it is close to a memorial park for soldiers.
The member aimed to promote false facts about the 108-year-old mosque that once owned the plot of Mount Thompson memorial park and sold it to a Brisbane crematorium.
“Some of these mosques have generated jihadis that have gone overseas and fought,” Chris said.
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“I think you know the famous one with his kids holding the heads.”
With a protest planned against the building of a mosque in Bendigo, Central Victoria, on Saturday, August 29, the ADL member asked why Muslims need “10 mosques on the south side of Brisbane within 20km of each other?”
He gestures to a mosque at Darra and says, “That’s what the ADL’s against. This over here getting built all the time and the government does nothing about it.”
The far-right group also voiced opposition against the construction of another mosque in Algester, calling locals to head down here and have a look.
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“The ADL’s had a gutful of these guys,” Chris said.
“We want to ban everything. We don’t want them here. Ban the burqa. Get rid of it all.”
Founded in 2009, the affiliate of the far-right English Defence League, ADL, is a registered not-for-profit organization which fosters anti-Islam sentiment in Australia.
ADL’s recent attacks on the Muslim community included stalking and photographing Muslim women on public transport, spraying invective at Muslims on Sydney streets and on social media, displaying anti-Islamic posters outside mosques and even threatening to blow up an Islamic school.
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Muslims, who have been in Australia for more than 200 years, make up 1.7 percent of its 20-million population.
In post 9/11-era, Australian Muslims have been haunted with suspicion and have had their patriotism questioned. (T/P006/RO6)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
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