Suong Nguyen was “scared” of a woman wearing a niqab when she banged on her car door, told her to take off her mask, and called her a terrorist.
The victim, Semaa Abdulwali, filmed the racist attack in the car park at Macquarie University on January 20, and the footage was watched by millions of people when her husband Ramzy Alamudi posted it online.
Nguyen was on Monday handed good behaviour bonds and a fine, after pleading guilty to intimidation and causing damage.
Magistrate Suzanne Seagrave said Nguyen displayed an “unexplainable prejudice that has no place whatsoever in our multicultural society”.
Suong Thao Nguyen during a racist rant outside Macquarie University in January 2017. Photo: Facebook
“It appeared to have been triggered by Mrs Abdulwali’s apparel, something that Ms Nguyen immediately resented and was angered by,” the magistrate said.
“The motive was prejudice against people of a particular faith.”
Nguyen’s lawyer, Andrew Tiedt, said the university had banned her from campus, and the incident had shattered her family life.
He said Nguyen wanted to express her remorse to the victims, who watched on as she banged on their windows, yelled, and paced around the front of their car.
Semaa Abdulwali filmed as Suong Thao Nguyen banged on her car door. Photo: Facebook
“She regrets what she did … and says she understands the distress and fear it would have caused,” Mr Tiedt said.
“She’s sure they’ve been through quite an ordeal through this process.”
Suong Nguyen covers her face as she leaves court on Monday. Photo: Supplied
Mr Tiedt said there was no excuse for Ms Nguyen’s actions.
“There’s an unjustified, but growing fear of the Muslim community and that isn’t in any way justifying what occurred.
“She was scared, she was afraid of them, then completely overreacted.”
He said Nguyen was recognised on the street after the video of the attack was widely shared.
“This has been a horrific six months for her and that’s by her own making.
“It seems everyone in Sydney has seen the video … that’s a stain on Ms Nguyen’s character.
“It’s unpleasant conduct to the extreme … she knows she did the wrong thing.”
Police prosecutor Ernest Chan said the victims were subjected to a prolonged and disturbing rant that was “unfounded racial and religious prejudice”.
Nguyen’s actions were motivated by hatred, he said.
“This is an incident that will have life-long impacts on both victims.”
Ms Seagrave handed Nguyen a two-year good behaviour bond for the intimidation charge, fined her $750, and ordered she be supervised by Community Corrections.
The magistrate said Nguyen must obey any directions to go into anger management counselling.
She was also handed a one-year good behaviour bond for the damage charge, to be served at the same time, and to pay $817 for damage to the couple’s car.
Helen Razer is a well-known writer and newspaper columnist.
Like so many of us she has Muslim friends, mostly women, who were targeted and harassed by hateful bigots. So she wrote a response.
We loved her powerful response to the tide of Islamophobia that is both encouraged by and threatens to overwhelm social media.
And we remind people that there is an enormous gap between critiques of all religions and vicious, ignorant and violent attacks on the adherents of minority faiths. We also note that attacks on Islam by bigots are usually gendered attacks by the same cowardly morons who would figure as perpetrators of misogynist attacks on women generally.
Sung to the tune of Botany Bay (composed and arranged by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz)
You don’t have to listen to Han$on When you hit the mute on the remote It works for the radio or telly Just think -a protest post-poll vote
Don’t read her bilge in the mass media Don’t look at her racist mean face Laugh when the Senate turns on her And wait for her tumble from grace
But we’ll love watching people do sendups We’ll chortle at all of those memes We’ll cheer at Huw Parkinson’s mashups Clarke and Dawe will bring more joyful screams
Look out for our media cartoonists Dog, Brown, Kudelka and Pope Moir and Cook and Kautauskas Bringing some humorous hope
Stick up for our people of colour And those of the Islamic faith Gays, lesbians and the transgendered Whose voices will be choked by this Wraith
Deny her a privileged platform Turn your backs when she spouts all her junk Rip her to shreds on the media And her fact-free “opinions” debunk
So bring on our own Pauline Pantsdown Get hell-mad with comical Shaun Watch for The Chaser to stalk her And wake to a Han$onless dawn!
Mariam Veiszadeh is regularly sent abusive messages on social media. Photo: Supplied
Each time Mariam Veiszadeh gets a death threat, she does a cost-benefit analysis.
The online abuse is so frequent that the lawyer and anti-Islamophobia advocate wouldn’t get any work done if she reported it all to police.
“I think about the consequences of reporting, the time and effort that goes into it, the psychological impact it has on me to pursue these matters, the potential outcome and whether it’s all worth it,” she said.
Trina Pania Hohaia was fined $1000 for using a carriage service to offend. Photo: Facebook
But just before midnight one night last July, a message landed in her Facebook inbox that she didn’t ignore
“Watch as we come for you in your sleep cut your throat as you do the animals you torment,” it said. “Kill your family for you to see. Kill your uncle which is now your husband slash grand f—er.. I will find you and hunt you down.”
In one of very few cases of online abuse that are prosecuted, Trina Pania Hohaia, a 38-year-old mother from Guildford, was convicted in her absence in Hornsby Local Court in September. The Reclaim Australia supporter, whose name and image were visible on her profile, was fined $1000.
An abusive post sent to Mariam Veiszadeh by Trina Pania Hohaia. Photo: Supplied
Online abuse has become pervasive yet the number of criminal convictions cover a mere fraction of the hateful material flung around the world wide web.
Figures provided to Fairfax Media show charges for using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend – the antiquated piece of legislation that online abuse falls under – have doubled in five years.
Last year, there were 1111 convictions from 1585 charges in NSW although the figures are not broken down by web or telephone threats. The most common punishment was a fine of about $700, far from the maximum prison term of three years.
Zane Alchin pleaded guilty to sending rape and death threats to Paloma Brierley Newton and others. Photo: Nick Moir
This week, two high-profile cases ended in guilty pleas. Central Coast chiropractor and former Liberal Party member Chris Nelson, 64, admitted to posting racist abuse on the Facebook page of Indigenous politician Nova Peris, and 25-year-old labourer Zane Alchin admitted to a torrent of rape and death threats sent to a group of Sydney women.
However, three in five Australian adults say they have been the target of online abuse and harassment, a 2015 RMIT study found.
“When I started research in this area, you had to go out of your way to find online abuse. Now it’s so bad, you have to go out of your way to avoid it,” Emma A. Jane, a UNSW academic conducting a three-year study into online misogyny, said.
Lucy Le Masurier, Paloma Brierley Newton, and Ollie Henderson set up Sexual Violence Won’t Be Silenced after Zane Alchin sent them abusive messages. Photo: Janie Barrett
“It’s become a lingua franca online. If you don’t agree with a woman, you send a rape threat or tell her she’s too ugly to rape. It’s so common it’s become almost banal.”
The internet, particularly social media, has brought empowerment and opportunity but it has quickly become a double-edged sword.
Zane Alchin leaving the Downing Centre Local Court this week. Photo: Nick Moir
Anti-semitic and anti-Muslim abuse take up the lions share of reports made to the Online Hate Prevention Institute’s Fight Against Hate. Misogynistic and homophobic abuse follow closely behind.
OHPI chief executive Andre Oboler said social media had amplified and emboldened pre-existing bigotry.
“People who feel isolated, who may have racist views but keep it to themselves because the people around them don’t support it, will easily find people who agree with them online so suddenly their inhibition drops,” he said.
While the internet’s veil of anonymity allowed a culture of abuse to develop, both Alchin and Nelson posted abuse under their own profiles. It has “become normalised to the extent … people seem quite happy to do it under their own names now,” Dr Jane said.
This is fuelled by the perception there will be no real-world consequences, she said.
Only 10 per cent to 20 per cent of offensive content reported to Facebook and Twitter is removed, OHPI found, and the impacts can be detrimental.
A father who used Facebook to post messages of support for refugees told Fairfax Media that hateful responses from far right groups over the past 18 months escalated to phone calls to his wife. Fake profiles and offensive memes with his image have been spread online. He fears it will affect his future job prospects and his family’s safety.
The 47-year-old, who asked for his name to be withheld, said he was laughed out the door when he reported it to Hobart police. “But in the same breath they said they get a lot of Facebook-related suicides,” he said.
Of the 50 women Dr Jane has interviewed, none had a satisfactory response when they reported online abuse to local police. Some were told to take a break from Facebook or to change their profile picture to “something less attractive”.
Paloma Brierley Newton, the subject of Alchin’s abuse, was initially turned away by Newtown police. She had stepped in to defend a friend whose profile from the dating app Tinder was being shamed on Facebook for being too provocative.
It was only when she set up an advocacy group with her friends, Sexual Violence Won’t Be Silenced, and went to the media that police became interested.
She hopes to introduce training to all local police stations, where cases of online abuse are investigated.
Assistant Commissioner Gary Worboys, corporate spokesman for victims of crime, said victims of online threats “can and should expect the complaint to be taken seriously”.
“While there is no … legislation in Australia that is specifically for cyber bullying, there are existing laws police use,” he said.
While prosecutions are important, Dr Jane said we needed to address the reasons why people posted abuse.
“We’re still a long way from cultivating a culture of accountability online,” she said. “There have been massive institutional failures at the level of corporations, social media platforms, police and policy makers.”
A commuter was assaulted after he stood up for three Muslim women who were subject to a vile racial and bigoted attack on a packed Melbourne train.
Jason Cias, 36, was travelling home from work in the city on the Craigieburn-bound train on Friday, May 15, when he saw two tradesmen vilifying three women – one older and two who appeared to be in their 20s – who were wearing headscarves.
The train had pulled out of Melbourne Central station about 3.15pm when the unprovoked abuse began after one of the younger women sat next to the tradesmen.
An image taken by a passenger on the train. Photo: Supplied
“One of them made reference to her headscarf, saying ‘You shouldn’t be wearing that shit in Australia’,” Mr Cias said.
Mr Cias said the young woman tried to put the men in their place, asking them what their problem was, and it sparked a heated exchange.
He said the older of the women appeared to try to calm the situation in Arabic, which was met with yet another barb from the men.
“The comment was, ‘You shouldn’t be speaking that shit in Australia’,” Mr Cias said.
The women got off the train at North Melbourne and it was when one of the men called after them ‘I’ll f—ing smash ya’ that Mr Cias stepped in.
“I said to the guy, ‘Mate, they’re women’. The implication there was you don’t threaten people, particularly women,” he said.
Mr Cias said he was told to mind his own business before one of the men stood over him and punched him to his left cheek.
“Even though the guy stood up and was acting aggressively, I didn’t expect to get punched. After that I walked towards him and grabbed his collar and held him at arm’s length and told him I would be laying charges,” he said.
The men moved to another carriage when another commuter intervened and separated them. Mr Cias got off the train at Kensington with two witnesses, including Katie Parker, 28, who captured part of the assault on video and rang police.
“It was awful to witness that sort of violence in the middle of the day … Jason just said one sentence calmly and he [the attacker] was really aggressive at the drop of a hat for no logical reason,” Ms Parker said.
Police met Mr Cias and the witnesses near Kensington station, taking statements and copies of the video and images of the offenders.
Mr Cias, who suffered bruising and swelling but no long-term injuries, said he would change only one thing about what he did.
“I would have liked to have said something earlier. That’s probably my only thing … but I certainly wouldn’t change what I did, I don’t agree with that behaviour,” he said.
“Whether it’s Islamic women or whoever, it’s just not right they can abuse people like that. No one should be doing that to anyone regardless of race or gender or religious creed.”
Flemington police are investigating the racial abuse and the assault and urged anyone with information to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report to www.crimestoppersvic.com.au
A small but noisy group of anti-Muslim campaigners are targeting Aussie businesses in their obsessively stupid warfare against Australian Muslims.
Despite labelling themselves as hateriots “patriots”, their latest strategic move as they rattle and bob across the media landscape is the undermining and trashing of Australian small business – specifically those businesses which want to cater both to Australian customers and to potential markets in our region.
No matter that Australia, without the trading opportunities available in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, will travel on the road to becoming an isolated, dull, backward, intolerant, inward-looking enclave of the suspicious, the xenophobic and the down-right crackbrained.
Much like this run-down white supremacist enclave in South Africa.
To those pig ignorant droogs who shut down a South Australian business because it had halal certified yoghurt selling to Emirates (Airlines)—what stupid, stupid people! If they really think this money goes to terrorists, they should stop buying petrol
– Malcolm Farr Political Editor News.com.au
Now here’s ABC 7:30’s report from November last year.
Transcript LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Across Australia, a vicious campaign against halal-certified companies is gaining momentum. A halal product is one that doesn’t contain any traces of pork, blood or alcohol, meaning it’s OK for Muslims to eat. Many products are halal-certified, even Vegemite. But anti-halal activists say they’re fighting back against creeping sharia law, claiming the label is a tax on non-Muslims and the money for certification goes towards terrorism. Here’s Alex Mann.
ALEX MANN, REPORTER: Six months ago, Fleurieu Milk & Yoghurt Company gained halal certification to supply a $50,000 yoghurt contract with Emirates Airlines.
NICK HUTCHINSON, FLEURIEU MILK & YOGHURT COMPANY: It was a requirement of Emirates. We had to pay a $1,000 fee. It opened up a business market to continue to become viable. It was a necessary step.
ALEX MANN: What do you understand halal to mean?
NICK HUTCHINSON: To be honest, up until a couple of weeks ago, my understanding wasn’t great on halal certification. We knew it was a fee we had to pay around $1,000 a year that allowed Muslims to consume our products on Emirates Airlines. Now, since then I’ve done a bit of research and so forth and we now know that halal certification doesn’t need to be – you don’t need halal certification for milk and yoghurt if it doesn’t contain gelatin, which ours doesn’t.
ALEX MANN: Keeping food and drink halal means no pork, blood or alcohol can be allowed anywhere in the production process.
The trouble began last month when Nick Hutchinson received an email asking to confirm whether his company had halal certification. His response was posted and shared across a network of anti-halal Facebook sites, unleashing a barrage of online hate.
FACEBOOK POST (male voiceover): What a crock of s**t. Cease halal certification now. You want halal? Go live in a Muslim country. Simple.
FACEBOOK POST II (male voiceover): It is sharia law that says these rag heads must eat halal food. We don’t have sharia law here, therefore no halal products are required in this country!!!! It’s all a scam to raise funds for terrorism!!!!!
FACEBOOK POST III (female voiceover): Screw halal and all who make it.
ALEX MANN: What exactly were people saying to you?
NICK HUTCHINSON: The money goes towards terrorism, the – it’s impacting on Australia’s well-being, our standard of life is being taken over because you’re paying these fees, allowing people of Islamic heritage to rule us. It come out of nowhere and happened quite quickly, because with one copy and paste onto these sites, you’ve gone from nobody knowing you’re a halal certified to 100,000 people that are extremely against it. And when they work together, they can impact quite heavily on small businesses such as ours.
ALEX MANN: Within two days, Fleurieu Milk & Yoghurt Company decided to ditch its certification, forfeiting its contract with Emirates.
NICK HUTCHINSON: Yeah, it sucks. I hate saying it, but there’s no other way to describe it. We gave in and decided that the negative publicity and the bullying outweighed what we were gaining from the halal certification.
ALEX MANN: The attack against Fleurieu was part of an organised online campaign against companies with halal certification.
KIRALEE SMITH, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, HALAL CHOICES: Hi, I’m Kiralee Smith, founder and director of Halal Choices. I love the freedom we have this nation. … Don’t be shouted down. You’re not a racist or a bigot because you have concerns about fundamental Islam or halal certification. Talk, share and discuss this important issue with your family and friends.
ALEX MANN: Across Australia, a loose collection of anti-halal, anti-Islam and nationalistic groups has been targeting halal-certified food companies. The groups identify businesses and direct users to swarm their social media sites.
MIKE HOLT, RESTORE AUSTRALIA: First of all, this is Australia. We are not Islamic. We’ve also been – we’ve had this imposed on us without our permission. Did you ever vote in a referendum to allow halal certification of just about everything in the supermarket? I didn’t. If they don’t change their ways and start acting as patriotic Australians, they deserve what they get. It’s market forces.
ALEX MANN: Mike Holt is an anti-mosque campaigner and a former One Nation candidate. He works with the other boycott groups to target companies like Fleurieu Milk.
MIKE HOLT: We are targeting various groups. We’ve been targeting Byron Bay Cookies. One thing you have to understand is Restore Australia works legally and we do not agree with abuse or threatening people, but we have no control over our supporters. There are people out there who get very, very passionate about this and they have made threats, which is unfortunate, but these companies have brought it on themselves.
ALEX MANN: The biggest anti-halal group, with more than 35,000 followers, is Boycott Halal in Australia. It claims certification costs push up prices and that the money for certification goes towards funding terrorism.
BOYCOTT HALAL IN AUSTRALIA FACEBOOK POST (male voiceover): One halal product = the next bullet that kills or maims. If you buy halal, you are indirectly funding terrorism.
NICK HUTCHINSON: One lady phoned me and asked if I was happy that we contributed towards the 9/11 attacks where she lost a few family members. Outrageous claims, something that – yeah, never expected, but yeah, it’s quite ridiculous.
TRISH DELANEY, BOYCOTT HALAL IN AUSTRALIA: Companies ask for feedback, but it appears they don’t like negative feedback, alright? I mean, I think it’s fair to say that people from all walks of life should be able to ask, “Are you halal certified?” It’s not a hard question.
ALEX MANN: Trish Delaney is one of Boycott Halal in Australia’s resident keyboard warriors. She spends up to four hours a day online co-ordinating the campaign.
TRISH DELANEY: Myself, lots of the 34,000 people have written to the Government and asked the Government to please, do something about this and label it so that people can know that they have a choice. We don’t mind or have anything against people eating halal food. We don’t want to pay for it. We don’t need it and we don’t want to pay for it.
ALEX MANN: So why do you say that we’re paying for it?
TRISH DELANEY: Because of the fees attached to the certification. Some companies say, “No, we absorb the costs,” and we say, “Well you’re not much of a business because businesses don’t absorb costs, they pass it on to consumers.”
ALEX MANN: On the NSW north coast, Byron Bay Cookie Company knows all about anti-halal campaigning. For months the company has suffered under the same sustained abusive campaign that targeted Fleurieu Milk Company.
KEITH BYRNE, BYRON BAY COOKIE COMPANY: When we’ve got the likes of our shop here in Byron Bay and we have a receptionist who has taken some of the phone calls which could – which were quite abusive and also emails that were quite abusive. That’s when we had to say, “Hold on a second, we now need to get some more support on this,” and we did have to actually bring in the police at that stage.
ALEX MANN: In spite of the opposition, he’s decided to keep his certification.
KEITH BYRNE: Cookie Company is exporting to 40 countries worldwide. So, it’s a huge benefit to us and it means that we can not only sustain our existing workforce, but we’ve expanded that over the last years and we’re now one of the biggest employers now in Byron Bay, with 65 people. We decided to keep the certification because if we were to not have that certification, that would mean that we could lose multiple global contracts, which would mean I’d have to downsize my operation here in Byron Bay. That would mean I would lose employees.
ALEX MANN: Nick Hutchinson warns that boycott campaigners are damaging local companies.
NICK HUTCHINSON: If they were to take us down, being a local – all our profits remain in SA. If our businesses disappear, you’re being run by companies in Japan or in Europe and these multinationals and is that better? Is that – our money going back there, is that a better option? Well, I’m sure most people agree it’s not.
The Q Society, responsible for bringing out and hosting international bigots like the floridly excitable Pamela Geller, the pseudonymous self-styled religious expert “Robert Spencer” and the languid Dutch blond Geert Wilders permeates the anti-Muslim movement like a noxious smell.
Wonder if the Qs have secret handshakes, blindfolds and stuff? Or goats? Or funds which they direct to the Three Stooges featured above?
And here they are pretending to be normal. We know better.
We managed to decipher the vitriolic scrawl. We are guessing a half-educated older female who has probably never seen, met or spoken to a Muslim in her sad hate-filled little life.
Dear Sir/Madam
Do you now wonder why Australians hate Muslims and there for (sic) the whole of Islam.
Actually not true. 34% seem inclined that way, which tells us that 34% of those surveyed exist on a diet of Murdoch rags and enjoy their own ignorance.
And the cericature (sic) was right with the pistol drawn person covered with the Burka; how would we know what you carry under this hidious (sic) outfit.
Well it may interest you to know that the person whose image was misused is actually a female police officer who was assassinated by the Taliban. Interesting that the ratbags want to insult her memory and that of other Afghan female police officers killed in the line of duty. Says a lot about these hate groups and their low-rent supporters.
When do you people learn that if you want to be accepted you have to live like Australians at least on the outside. What ever you’d like to do behind closed doors is your business.
Guess what lady, these Muslims you hate so much are just as Australian as you are. Probably more so – they are not writing diatribes of hate to people. They are getting on with their lives, working, studying, running businesses and raising their kids.
That’s what normal Australians do.
And until you do that we will always despise you and your outfits actions and behaviour.
Who is “we”? Certainly not us or any other normal person.
And another good deed was done when the police shot this animal displaying the black flag.
Police in all jurisdictions are trained to use lethal force only as a last resort. So they won’t be shooting suspects just to make you racists and bigots happy.
Sometimes we wonder why Australia let this ANIMALS into our country. They can not be humans when they behead someone for fun.
Care to tell us (and the police) who has been beheaded by any terrorist suspect in Australia?
As far as we are concerned every one does behave in this manner should be send where they came from. We only feel sorry for the small minority who behave, dress and live like Australians.
Australian citizens have the right to live in this country and dress as they please.
And did you ask permission of the First Nations before your family plonked themselves on this continent?
By the way do you see any other countries display their national outfit or costume here in Australia? Do you see Austrians wear their Lederhosen or Russians wear their Cossak (sic) hat and gear?
Women from the subcontinent often wear saris or the salwar kameez as everyday dress. Sikh men often wear turbans. Observant Jewish men may wear kippot and even tefilin. Etc. etc.
Austrians do wear Lederhosen for folkloric festivals and the like.
And your ignorance is showing like a big red light bulb. Not all Russians are Cossacks. Not all Cossacks are Russian.
And as Harlan Ellison so aptly said:
“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”
We think that other Muslims have received these threats as well.
This is typical of the behaviour of cowardly far right hate groups like the various flavours of ADL.
NSW Premier Mike Baird has stated that he does not want Muslims targeted by bigots.
Sending anonymous threats by post or using electronic media to threaten or harass people is illegal.
So if anyone receives any threats either in the mail, by telephone, via e mail or via social media, or who are abused or threatened in the street by these low-life, take government advice and go to your local police and report it.
You will receive an event number which is a record of your complaint.
When you have done so let your local State MP know and give them the event number.
Remember you have the support of all fair-minded and tolerant Australians.
The quote in the title comes from an irate commenter and neatly summarises the depths to which the gutter press will go to when they are trying to get an outcome for its owner. Strictly speaking, Islam is a religion not an ethnicity but Islamophobia has the same roots as does anti-Semitism and the language and iconography are the same. So is the underlying racism which fuels the bigotry.
Why most people would normally be interested in a piece about an obscure Sydney suburb that states the bleeding obvious as in “Muslims live in this suburb” is hard to fathom until you factor in the following:
This churnalism acts as clickbait for the bogots with lots of juxtaposed lurid pics and pokey buzzwords to get them into a frothing frenzy about the “Muslim threat to ‘Strayan culture’ “.
Lakemba has a large Muslim population (51.8% according to the last census) so it makes for a focus of fear and loathing for Islamophobes, preferred suckers for News Corpse nonsense.
The state seat of Lakemba (safe Labor) will lose its sitting member, Robert Furolo, who is retiring at the next state election. Labor is holding a pre-selection for his replacement and two of the candidates are Muslim.
We look forward to the following headlines from Tim Blair
Catholics take over historic building!
Jewish businesses set up in Bondi!
Hillsong invades New York!
SDA products take over supermarket!
But it won’t happen will it…
Meanwhile here’s some sample tweets reacting to the bilge. Read some more from Antoinette here if you can get past the paywall.
An image taken by a passenger on the train. Photo: Supplied
you said it... 