routinely used against protesters<\/a> in Australia, along with non-lethal weapons such as \u201cflash-bang\u201d grenades and hard-foam baton round bullets.<\/p>\nA Ramadan night market in the Dandenong suburb of the state\u2019s capital, Melbourne, was recently declared a designated \u201cstop and search\u201d area, which \u201csends a deeply troubling message\u201d, said Nour Salman of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegitimate criticism of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights is not dangerous or unlawful,\u201d Salman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPalestinians and their supporters should not have to worry that speaking out against genocide could be treated as a crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Muslim communities already facing rising hostility, it reinforces the idea that even spaces of faith, culture and celebration are viewed through a lens of suspicion. That approach does not build trust. It entrenches fear and normalises the policing of Muslim and Palestinian identity,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u2018Made the decision to protect just one religion\u2019<\/p>\n
The New South Wales federal hate speech laws were part of a suite of recommendations made by Jillian Segal, the government-appointed special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, who argued that \u201csince 7 October 2023, anti-Semitism has risen to deeply troubling levels in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cAncient myths and misinformation have re-emerged in new forms to justify violence and threats against the Australian Jewish community,\u201d Segal, a South African-born lawyer, wrote in her report on plans to tackle anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n
Along with the Bondi attack, there have also been attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses across the country, while Neo-Nazism is on the rise.<\/p>\n
Far-right and fascist groups, such as the National Socialist Network, have organised public anti-immigration marches, one of which saw an attack on an Indigenous sacred site in Melbourne, Australia\u2019s second-largest city.<\/p>\n
The attack involved about 40 men dressed in black who charged an encampment at the Aboriginal site, injuring women and damaging property.<\/p>\n
Indigenous leader Robbie Thorpe, who oversees Camp Sovereignty, said such violence against Indigenous people needs to be taken as seriously by the government as its campaign against anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe [attack on Camp Sovereignty] was an act of terrorism,\u201d Thorpe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe warned the city council about the rise of the threat of violence by these guys. We warned them before that happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In January, a man was charged with throwing an explosive into a group of pro-Indigenous demonstrators in the Western Australian city of Perth.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the device did not explode, but Thorpe questions why such incidents of violence against Indigenous Australians are not taken as seriously as anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s offended a lot of Aboriginal people that straight away they can get an inquiry or a royal commission into anti-Semitism,\u201d said Thorpe. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about the issue of racism in this country the entire time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indigenous Australians, since British colonisation, have been victimised by massacres, forced child removals and land dispossession, underpinned by racially-based government legislation.<\/p>\n
A 2023 referendum to include an Indigenous voice to parliament and address ongoing injustices and inequalities experienced by First Nation people was soundly rejected, while the period was marked by a spike in racism towards Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended the new laws targeting hate crimes, saying \u201cthe terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their minds but guns in their hands. This law will deal with both, and we need to deal with both.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to ensure that Australia remains a society where everyone has the right to be proud of who they are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, Greens party spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said the laws are primarily designed to prioritise the protection of the Jewish community in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that hate touches all marginalised people. The same hateful ideology that led to the appalling Bondi shooting could also be weaponised against women, members of the Muslim community or LGBTQ+ Australians,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis law was deliberately designed to not protect these vulnerable parts of our community, and that seriously undermines its legitimacy and utility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the Albanese Labor government and the Liberals made the decision to protect just one religion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne \u2013 Human rights groups have slammed the Australian government\u2019s new \u201chate speech\u201d laws, saying they will have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,64,63,1379,6898,50903,12241,44,6899,1158,2966],"class_list":{"0":"post-567004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-features","12":"tag-gaza","13":"tag-islamophobia","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-palestine","17":"tag-police","18":"tag-racism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}