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| Down Under | ||
| Australian race riots may spread across the nation | ||
| 2005-12-15 | ||
| Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has dismissed a racist text message campaign in his state as a hoax, but said he is not taking any chances about Sydney's ethnic violence spreading north. And Victorian police, who have intercepted text messages inciting people to violence, also said they are not expecting riots in the state but are preparing for a worst case scenario. Text messages and emails calling for racial unrest, similar to those which helped fuel last weekend's riots in southern Sydney, have began circulating outside NSW. On the Gold Coast, text messages have surfaced calling for people to start "cracking skulls".
"The police are investigating but our view is that it's a hoax. "I don't believe that we'll have a repeat of what happened in Sydney here in Queensland, but we won't take any chances. "We have very strong anti-vilification laws that make sure any behaviour that we've seen elsewhere can be punished by law and will be." In Victoria, police have intercepted a text message inciting race violence and tracked down the person who sent it. But Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said the young man involved would not be charged. "It's a young man who I think made a mistake, had no real potential to create any problems but thought, just hop on board and just be part of the group of people who might want to make some trouble," she told Nine. "He really had no potential or capacity to do that." Ms Nixon said police in her state also were not taking any chances. "We've got our people out there and we believe that we'll be able to deal with it," she said. "It can happen anywhere. When you get what happened in NSW with young people, you fuel it with alcohol and heat and some tension and some fear in the community, then these things can happen. "And none of us should stand there and say it's not possible and it's not going to happen." Police powers will be boosted during an emergency session of NSW parliament today amid fears of more racial violence in Sydney. Under the changes, police will have the power to lock down trouble spots, confiscate cars, and order hotels and bottle shops to stop serving alcohol.
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| Posted by:Oztralian |
| #3 Are the contents of prayertime speeches made by various mosque imams being examined for violation of "anti-vilification" statutes? [crickets] |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-15 13:01 |
| #2 "We have very strong anti-vilification laws that make sure any behaviour that we've seen elsewhere can be punished by law and will be." These wouldn't be the anti-vilification laws that were used to prosecute Christians who quoted from the Koran, would they? If so, you should understand there's not a lot of confidence in them being applied with good will or sense. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-12-15 10:20 |
| #1 For their own safety perhaps Australia should make boat trip tickets to Indonesia available to all Arabs who feel they have been persecuted because of their race (and or drug dealing and gang raping). |
| Posted by: Anguter Thereque7190 2005-12-15 09:38 |