{"id":769876,"date":"2026-06-30T12:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/769876\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T12:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:40:11","slug":"usman-khawaja-helps-launch-islamophobia-awareness-campaign-as-anti-muslim-rhetoric-ramps-up-across-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/769876\/","title":{"rendered":"Usman Khawaja helps launch Islamophobia awareness campaign as anti-Muslim rhetoric ramps up across Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The growing problem of Islamophobia hit home to Usman Khawaja a couple of years ago when his mother was verbally abused while she was watching her son play in a Test match in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Wearing a traditional hijab, Fauzia copped abuse from two Australian fans at the 2024 Boxing Day Test match against India at the MCG.<\/p>\n

“She had a couple of guys come up to her and start yelling into her ear and she was pretty shocked by the experience,” Khawaja said.<\/p>\n

“I was playing so I didn’t find out until later in the day.<\/p>\n

“Funnily enough, those two individuals were Australian supporters. They were doing that to an Australian \u2014 a fellow Australian.”\"A<\/p>\n

Usman Khawaja said he often felt like an outsider in the Australian cricket team due his religious beliefs. (ABC News: Alexandra Alvaro)<\/p>\n

Having retired from international cricket in January after a stellar 15-year career, Khawaja is now using his high profile to fight against Islamophobia across Australia.<\/p>\n

He’s joined a national campaign to raise awareness of Islamophobic behaviour, urging victims to report incidents.<\/p>\n

Khawaja joined Aftab Malik, Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, at the campaign’s official launch in Melbourne on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

A video, launched as part of the campaign, calls on bystanders to take action if they witness incidents of anti-Muslim hate.<\/p>\n

“It can happen anywhere at work, online, while shopping, in the places we feel safe. Its effects are universal, ongoing and increasing,” the narrator says.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Aftab Malik (right) said the anti-Muslim rhetoric of One Nation was “unhelpful”. (ABC News: Alexandra Alvaro)<\/p>\n

“When we call it out, when we report it, we make space for systemic change.<\/p>\n

“Reporting gives organisations, institutions and the entire community the power and the backing to create a future where acts of Islamophobia can be properly addressed.”<\/p>\n

Islamophobia envoy warns government not to wait ‘for another Christchurch’<\/a><\/p>\n

The author of a landmark report on Islamophobia in Australia says the federal government is taking too long to act on the issue.<\/p>\n

Mr Malik described the rise of One Nation, and the anti-Muslim rhetoric of leader Pauline Hanson, as “unhelpful”.<\/p>\n

“I think the discourse that surrounds these conversations are stereotypical, damaging and dangerous,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It keeps me up all night. It’s the same everywhere you go across Australia.<\/p>\n

“We have an understanding that what is reported is just the tip of the iceberg. We are deeply concerned and something needs to be done.”<\/p>\n

\"Usman<\/p>\n

Pakistan-born Usman Khawaja scored more than 6,000 runs in 88 Tests for Australia. (AP Photo: Eranga Jayawardena)<\/p>\n

Khawaja, who wrote the foreword to the campaign’s report, said he felt like “an outsider” for much of his time with the Australian cricket team, and faced Islamophobia throughout his career.<\/p>\n

“I’ve experienced Islamophobia since I was a kid in lots of different, varying ways, but I’ve witnessed it more in recently because I’m more attuned to it and I think it’s more prevalent right now,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In the Australian cricket team, I felt like an outsider for a very long time, until recently, the last five years.<\/p>\n

Bondi terror attack online hate<\/a><\/p>\n

Deepfake and altered images depicting a Bondi Beach terror attack spread “like wildfire” online just hours after the shooting, a royal commission has heard.<\/p>\n

“There were times when people tried to ostracise me and discriminate against me because of my beliefs in a broader sense.”<\/p>\n

But Khawaja, 39, said that Muslim women, like his mother, suffered much greater challenges in modern Australian.<\/p>\n

“If I walk down the street, I can get away with it. If you look at me, you don’t really see too much,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But women who wear hijabs are targets right now, because they wear their religions on their sleeves. It’s very hard for them to walk down the street and blend in.<\/p>\n

“I think hate right now is more prevalent that it has been before, not just in terms of Islamophobia, but in general.”<\/p>\n

After the national launch in Victoria, the campaign will roll out in the other states and territories, with Mr Malik estimating a 40 per cent rise in Islamophobic incidents since the Bondi attacks last December.<\/p>\n

“These incidents are becoming increasingly brazen, outlandish and violent,” Mr Malik said.<\/p>\n

“I think people feel emboldened. When our politicians speak in certain terms, it encourages individuals to take action.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The growing problem of Islamophobia hit home to Usman Khawaja a couple of years ago when his mother…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,366069,265653,647,204584,44,11925,90572,70541],"class_list":["post-769876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australias-office-of-the-special-envoy","tag-islamaphobia","tag-melbourne","tag-muslims","tag-news","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-usman-khawaja"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769876","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=769876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}