Islamophobia increased in Australia after supremacist attack in New Zealand

Sydney, Australia, 15 Mar Verbal and physical Islamophobic attacks, as well as on the Internet, increased in Australia following the supremacist attack perpetrated on March 15, 2019 in neighboring New Zealand, according to a report published on Tuesday on the third anniversary of that tragedy. The report “Islamophobia in Australia”, released today by Charles Sturt University and three religious organizations, indicates that following the terrorist act perpetrated by the Australian Brenton Tarrant against two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, where 51 Muslims died, attacks, such as vandalism against mosques, increased by four times. Although before the attack, between 2014 and 2019, more than half of the Australian mosques had already suffered vandalism, such as graffiti, fires or threats, among others, the bulk of these attacks occurred after the Christchurch massacre. Similarly, online attacks by Tarrant supporters, who justify or glorify this terrorist act and call for bloodshed similar to that perpetrated in Christchurch, increased 18-fold two weeks after the incident, according to a report prepared by Derya Iner of Charles Sturt University. “Along with this hyperviolent rhetoric, we saw an escalation in xenophobic language, from telling people to 'go home' to expressing supremacist conspiracies as a 'demographic invasion of Muslims, '” the author of the report said in an article published Tuesday in the academic journal The Conversation. The author stressed that such xenophobic attacks were the most popular form of hate rhetoric on the internet (43 per cent) after associating Muslims with terrorism (58 per cent). Attacks on Muslims, especially women and children, come from all walks of life, from beggars to academics, and mainly from white men. On the third anniversary of the supremacist massacre in Christchurch, the coordinator of the Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand, Aliya Danzeisen, said that Islamophobia is also increasing in that ocean country. “There are academics in New Zealand who say it is increasing. Intelligence and security agencies, too, even issued an alert last November about the possibility of another attack. There is definitely a notable increase compared to three years ago,” Danzeisen told public broadcaster Radio New Zealand. The Tarrant attack prompted the New Zealand Government to admit that failures were made prior to the attack, including “almost exclusive” attention to Islamic terrorism to the detriment of the monitoring of supremacist individuals and groups. The Wellington Executive also carried out various reforms such as the possession of weapons, ordered an investigation into the facts and launched a crusade with France against hate messages on the Internet. Tarrant, who partially rebroadcast his attack and published his ideology on social media, was sentenced in August 2020 to life imprisonment on 51 counts of murder, 50 counts of attempted murder and one for terrorism. CHIEF wat

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