‘People must stand up against these things’: Man films racial tirade at Coburg park

January 6 2017 – 6:33AM

Emily Woods

Ahmed Abou-eid was enjoying a beautiful day with family at Harmony Park in Coburg on Wednesday when things turned ugly.

“My wife and friends frequent that park often, and the kids have a great time. It’s called Harmony Park for a reason – there’s so much friendliness in the park,” the Thornbury man said.

Racist tirade at Coburg park
Caution: strong language. An intoxicated man hurls racial abuse at a family enjoying a picnic at a park in Melbourne’s north.

“We had three female friends of mine with their children, and they probably had seven kids with them, the park was quite full and there were a lot of kids playing around.”

A man clutching a whisky bottle, hurling offensive language and racial abuse, quickly changed the mood from playful to frightening.

The man who racially abused several adults and children at a popular Coburg park on Wednesday. Photo: Ahmed Abou-eid.

“This man was sitting on his own, on a table, and there was a couple not far from him sitting on a table next to him, and he started hurling abuse at them, and telling them to get out of the country,” Mr Abou-eid said.

“And so they left and then he came over to the playground where the kids were and started doing the same thing to us.”

Mr Abou-eid said said the man was clearly intoxicated, slurring his words and wobbling as he approached and started hurling abuse at anyone within earshot.

The man walked back to the table, and then came back for a second round. Mr Abou-eid said that was when he decided to film him.

“I thought this is too close for comfort, I better film this,” he said.

“F— off you wog,” the man can be heard yelling in the video. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing, go back to where you’re sitting,” Mr Abou-eid responds.

“Have you thought about my family? No you don’t even think about it,” the man says, in between expletives, repeating the words “wog” and “dago”.

Ahmed Abou-eid, back centre, with his family (left to right) Salma, Isra, Yasmin and Aladdin. Photo: Facebook

The man walks closer to Mr Abou-eid, realising he is being filmed, and says “you’re not allowed to take my picture”.

He walks around the playground, next to where the children are playing. “Oh you’re a macho man,” he says, inciting a fight.

He then turns on one of the women, “Go back to Greece you f—ing wog,” he yells.

“Have you thought about my family? No you don’t even think about it,” the man says, in between expletives, repeating the words “wog” and “dago”.

The man walks closer to Mr Abou-eid, realising he is being filmed, and says “you’re not allowed to take my picture”.

He walks around the playground, next to where the children are playing. “Oh you’re a macho man,” he says, inciting a fight.

He then turns on one of the women, “Go back to Greece you f—ing wog,” he yells.

The man eventually throws a punch at Mr Abou-eid, but Mr Abou-eid does not retaliate.

“Just go back, just go back,” he says to the man. At the end of the video the man sits down inside the playground, crosses his legs, and clutches his bottle of whisky.

Mr Abou-eid said after he stopped filming, several people around him decided to leave the park.

“Some families got their kids and got in their cars and drove off, and then about six or seven guys surrounded him and I think he got scared so he stopped abusing everybody,” he said.

Police were called several times during the altercation. Once they arrived the man was taken away, but Mr Abou-eid said he did not want to press charges as he didn’t want to relive what had happened.

“The police told me, they’ve had a few problems with him in the area, but not in the park, and not actually abusing anyone to the extent that he had that day,” he said.

“You think it’s the drink or the alcohol, but these people have this racism in them that comes out of them the more they drink.

“I would love to ask him why he has that much hatred towards people from overseas and what has someone done to him to make him feel like that.”

He said, by filming the incident, he hoped he could make people aware of the abuse, and urged people not to stay silent.

“These things are happening, they are real and people must stand up against these things. If they see something like that happen, don’t walk away, help out if someone needs help, step in,” Mr Abou-eid said.

Mr Abou-eid said he worried about how witnessing such abuse could affect his children in the future.

“My six-year-old asked me today if the man was still in jail. They’re still thinking about it, and they’re scared to go back to the park again,” he said.

“That park is a meeting point for a lot of friends and family, but now we will kind of think twice about whether we will go there.”

Moreland City Council mayor Helen Davidson said the behaviour was unacceptable.

“Moreland takes great pride in having such a culturally diverse community. This behaviour goes against what the community of Moreland stands for,” she said.

“Harmony Park was created by Moreland for people to come together; people of all ages, cultures and abilities. This footage shows that Moreland’s community does not tolerate this behaviour.”

Advice from the Australian Human Rights Commission about being a bystander to racial abuse is “if you see something, say something, if it feels safe to do so”.

“It doesn’t have to be aggressive, in fact it’s often more effective if it’s not. It could be as simple as saying ‘Why don’t you just leave him/her alone?”‘

Fairfax Media has chosen to blur the face of the man yelling abuse due to his level of intoxication.

 
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Growing Up Queer

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Election special No 16 – Darryl Moore, women and “illiterate animals”

The Age

Mr Abbott said he was not aware of Mr Moore’s comments.

“But obviously people shouldn’t make unsavoury comments,” he told reporters in Adelaide.

“I repudiate unsavoury comments by candidates, whoever they might be.”

The Australian (paywall)

THE Liberal Party is standing by a real estate portfolio manager who referred to his tenants as illiterate animals, boasted about evicting them by “forklift and dumptruck” and said he always negotiated harder with women to let them know he would not “play their games”.

Federal Labor yesterday called on Tony Abbott to disendorse Darryl Moore in the seat of Perth where he is in a battle to best Labor’s Alannah MacTiernan.

It has emerged that, using the handle Dazzling, Mr Moore made dozens of provocative comments on a property investment website in 2005, including that in negotiations “I make it a particular point to be extra tough on the women”.

“They absolutely do not like it when they realise I am unwilling to play their gameoes (sic) take an extra special effort to ignore the subtle ‘non-verbal and non written’ stuff that goes on during a negotiation,” he said.

“Just my way of ensuring I don’t get rolled by that particular and common tactic.”

On a visit to Western Australia yesterday, Workplace Relations minister Bill Shorten likened Mr Moore to the fictional rake Don Draper in the television series Mad Men, saying some of his comments were suited to the script of the drama set in the 1960s.

“Women should be treated equally in the workplace. Full stop,” Mr Shorten said.

“There’s a lot of progressive Liberals, I’m sure, who would be shaking their heads at these out-of-line comments.

“This isn’t just a women’s issue. This is a men’s issue. Why should men have their daughters, their sisters, their wives go to work and be confronted with attitudes that are 50 years out of date in the Australian workplace.”

Yesterday the Liberal party issued a statement confirming Mr Moore remained its candidate for Perth.

The Australian has been told there is no intention to disendorse him over what the party describes as “poorly-worded” remarks. Mr Moore did not add to a statement he issued through the party on Monday conceding some of the dozens of comments published on The Good Oil political commentary website were “open to misinterpretation”.

Yesterday the website published more of Mr Moore’s 2005 remarks, including recounting his tactics to compel a “whinging” tenant out of a house.

In earlier posts, Mr Moore likened court action against tenants to “being forced to get in the gutter with these illiterate animals”. He preferred a method he described as “forklift and dump truck”.

“(G)etting moved on from your supposed ‘home’, as you have no ultimate control over its life if you don’t like it or don’t want to put up with that set of circumstances you can always go and buy your own castle,” he wrote.

Election special No 14 – ”Go sit on the M4, people see 50,000 people come in by boat …”

Liberal candidate links asylum seekers to traffic jams and hospital queues

September 3, 2013 – 11:01AM

James Robertson

Reporter

Fiona Scott suggested asylum seekers were making traffic worse and also exacerbating traffic queues. Photo: Screen grab, 4 Corners

A Liberal candidate in western Sydney has said she believes asylum seekers are contributing to outer-suburban traffic jams.

”[Asylum seekers are] a hot topic here because our traffic is overcrowded,” Fiona Scott, the Liberal candidate for the seat of Lindsay told the ABC’s Four Corners program.

Fiona Scott with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

When asked to explain her view she said: ”Go sit on the M4, people see 50,000 people come in by boat – that’s more than twice the population of [western Sydney suburb] Glenmore Park,” she said.

Ms Scott also suggested asylum seekers were exacerbating hospital waiting queues.

Ms Scott is challenging Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury in the September election. She came to prominence last month when Tony Abbott controversially described her as having ”sex appeal”.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul described Ms Scott’s comments as ”shockingly ignorant” and said there were only a few thousand refugees in the area.

On the issue of asylum seekers, Mr Rintoul said Ms Scott’s comments ”reflected the scaremongering and the xenophobic views of the Coalition”.

”She should be well informed, but she is saying absurd and ridiculous things.”

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Mr Rintoul estimated that just a few thousand refugees, mostly from Afghanistan and Iran, would call suburbs in the seat of Lindsay, which includes Emu Plains and Castlereagh, as home.

”She has characterised [refugees] as creating social problems,” he says. ”Western Sydney is full of migrants who have very often experience some kind of discrimination and these negative views on asylum seekers will do no good to her campaign whatsoever.”

And of course some humour followed

Judges cut jail time for neo-Nazi who attacked Vietnamese student

August 20, 2013 – 2:31PM

Mark Russell

A former member of the neo-Nazi “Crazy Whiteboys” gang at a Port Melbourne school who attacked a Vietnamese international student by smashing a brick over his head with such force the brick broke in two has had his minimum jail term reduced by one year.

Shannon Hudson, 22, had been jailed for 10 years and six months with a non-parole period of eight years over the savage race-hate attack, which a Supreme Court judge described as “deplorable”, “brutal” and “unprovoked”.

Court of Appeal Justices Peter Buchanan, Marcia Neave and Phillip Priest allowed Hudson’s appeal against his sentence on Tuesday and reduced his non-parole period to seven years.

Justice Buchanan said Hudson’s crime was one of “wanton and unprovoked viciousness” but while the total jail sentence was within an acceptable range, the non-parole period was too severe for such a young offender.

About 10pm on June 27 last year, Hudson, Wayne O’Brien and another friend, who cannot be identified because he was 17, were on their way to Hudson’s Ascot Vale home after a day of drinking in the city, when they noticed the student walking on the opposite side of Rothwell Street, listening to music on his iPhone.

The student was on his way home from his part-time job at a 7-Eleven.

The court heard that one of the three ran across the road and the others followed and began punching and kicking their victim in the head, face and body.

They taunted him and yelled things including “you f—ing Gook” and “lie down you dog, you yellow dog” as the man begged for his life.

Hudson and O’Brien had been members of the Crazy Whiteboys gang at school.

Supreme Court Justice Betty King, when jailing Hudson and O’Brien, said their victim was “terrified and believed he was going to be beaten to death”.

The victim repeatedly asked why they were attacking him before he was stabbed and fell unconscious in the gutter.

“Despite that, it would appear that the assault continued,” Justice King said.

“In a particularly chilling episode of violence, you [Hudson] picked up one of the bricks that was lying loose on the ground. Mr O’Brien, in his statement, said he tried to stop you by saying ‘don’t worry about it, come on man, lets just f—ing go’, but you persisted – you lifted the brick up over your head, with both of your hands and then brought it down on the top of [the victim’s] head, with such force that the brick itself broke in half.”

After his arrest, O’Brien told police that Hudson had wielded the brick like a sledgehammer.

In an interview with police, O’Brien said: “It’s just like … don’t like you know Asian people, any descent, don’t like Jews and I don’t like Negros …

“But I’ve never gang-bashed someone, like never seen someone being bricked and I’ve never seen someone like so close to f—ing death.”

The victim, who the judge said was almost unrecognisable as a human being after the bashing, suffered multiple lacerations to the head, face and body; a fractured skull; a torn left cheek and lip requiring stitches and plastic surgery; a stab wound to the left forearm; two stab wounds to the lower back; the loss of several front teeth and numerous crooked teeth which required realignment or removal.

He needed facial reconstructive surgery and continues to receive treatment, particularly in relation to his jaw and dental problems.

In his victim impact statement, the student said he had trouble speaking and was fearful of strangers.

Justice King said Hudson and O’Brien had been incredibly fortunate that the student did not die.

“The beating that he was given by you was remorseless, violent and sustained.”

Hudson was jailed for 10 years and six months with a non-parole period of eight years, while O’Brien, who had no previous convictions and had co-operated with authorities, was jailed for four years and six months with a non-parole period of two years and six months. The 17-year-old was dealt with in the children’s court.

Source

Elsewhere

Crazy White Boys Go To Jail

Two ‘Crazy White Boys’ jailed for attack on Vietnamese student

Skinheads jailed for brutal Asian bashing

A reminder – If you are a skinhead you cannot be a racist

Transcript of original trial

Geert Wilders in Australia, February 2013

slackbastard

Posted on February 2, 2013 by @ndy

Update : Fairfax has an article on Wilders’ tour titled ‘White supremacists ready for fight’ (Natalie O’Brien, The Age, February 2, 2013). It refers, inter alia, to the ‘Australian New Nation’ website — established several years ago in order to replace the White Pride Coalition of Australia site — and the Internet radio show ‘Australia Calling’. ‘Australia Calling’ is produced by Brisbane nazi Carl D Thompson, who briefly came to public attention some years ago when he lost his job editing the One Nation newspaper after publishing some anti-Semitic material.

Muslim-hating Dutch rightist Geert Wilders is gonna be touring Down Under in a few weeks. The Flying Dutchman’s tour is being organised by an anti-Islamic group known as the Q Society, and Wilders is scheduled to speak in Melbourne on the 19th, Perth on the 20th and Sydney on the 22nd of February, with the venues only being announced a day or two prior.* Unsurprisingly, having already roused controversy, Wilder’s tour is expected to generate some opposition, but also a good deal of support, especially among the far-right fringe. To that end, a number of individuals drawn from racist and fascist groups will be attending Wilder’s events :– some ostensibly in order to protect them from disruption.

Or were . . .

Within 48 hours of declaring that it was the sacred duty of White racialists to attend Wilder’s event in Sydney — largely in order to show the dastardly Reds who’s boss — Welf Herfurth — the leader of the minuscule forces of the New Right (NR) in Australia — changed his mind, and declared it to be a positively dreadful idea, one which risked aligning the NR with Zionists (ergo Jews).

Well, kinda . . .

Actually, the former NPD, ON and Democrats (!) member was admonished by his master, Troy Southgate, to pull his head in and think a li’l moar about the implications of aligning his handful of followers with The Jew. Thus:

Note that Herfurth’s mob last reared its head in Sydney back in November, when police provided them a platform at a Palestine solidarity rally; Herfurth himself is a Holocaust denialist and strong supporter of his kamerad Uncle Fred Toben.

Australian Protectionist Party & Conservative Islamophobia

Of course, support for Wilder’s message also extends deep into the conservative heartland, and includes prominent Muslim-baiters in the Tory party as well as handsomely-paid hacks in the corporate and state media. Further, the conservative embrace/promotion of paranoid fears over Muslamics has stolen a good deal of oxygen from a number of racist, right-wing fringe-dwellers, including Anders Breivik’s friends in the Australian Protectionist Party (APP). Just five short years after its foundation as a more ‘moderate’, less anti-Semitic version of the Australia First Party (AF), the APP has undergone its first major crisis, with the entirety of its Sydney branch decamping in order to establish yet another marginal bunch of kooks, this time modelled on Wilder’s Freedom Party (the APP modelled itself on the BNP). Whether or not the handful who spat the dummy can actually assemble another party remains to be seen, but given that they were the only active members the APP possessed the Protectionists seem doomed to disappear back into oblivion.

Or perhaps not.

Andrew Phillips, APP National Chairman, has relocated himself and his PO Box to Tasmania, while the party continues to nominate two others as contacts for NSW and VIC. Having lost perennial losers Darrin Hodges and Nicholas Hunter-Folkes, Phillips is now begging someone — anyone — to nominate themselves to undergo the humiliation of losing another popularity contest. Those interested can write to P.O. Box 170, Dover, Tasmania 7117 (which also functions as the postal address of Meals On Wheels in that part of the world).

*According to Q, “Details will be advised to paid-up patrons 48 hours prior to event. Expect a function centre within easy reach of the CBD. Photo ID is required to enter; only one small handbag per patron permitted into the venue.” Paul Sheehan writes for the defence here and you can read more about the Q Society on their webshite.

(More) Bloody Foreigners Making Trouble

Overseas: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka ‘Tommy Robinson’ aka ‘Paul Harris’), the leader of the E E EDL, has been sentenced to 10 months jail for ‘possession of a false identity document with improper intention’, viz entering the US to attend an anti-Muslim gathering using a false passport. (Tommy’s troubles mirror those of Martin Brennan, another whinging Pom and the former leader of the A A ADL, forcibly expelled from Australia in August 2011 for immigration offences.) Also in attendance at the gathering in New York in September last year was Yanqui crackpot Robert Spencer. Spencer is described as ‘VP Islamic Scripture and History’ for the Q Society and runs a loon website called jihadwatch; the Coordinator for Victoria/Tasmania and Secretary of the Society is Ralf Schumann; Andrew McDonald is their Administrator in NSW while in Perth Debbie Robinson coordinates teh stoopid. Anyway, here’s a picture of the patriotic sheila from Perf (Debbie Robinson) and two foreign loons (Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer) holding the Strayan flag at SION:

More on Geert’s tour later maybe . . .

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Fail: Josh’s ‘Benders’ page backfires

August 1, 2012

Elise Snashall-Woodhams

‘Just curious’ … Josh Turner outside court. Photo: Bendigo Advertiser

The creator of a Facebook page set up to rate the sexual performance of the residents of Bendigo that featured sexually degrading comments about people as young as 13 has been sentenced to a suspended jail term.

Josh Turner, 25, from the Bendigo suburb of Kangaroo Flat, was also banned from the social networking site for two years after he pleaded guilty in the Bendigo Magistrates Court yesterday to charges of using a carriage service to offend and using an online information service to publish objectionable material.

The community have been absolutely outraged by this. She is a young girl, still in school… her name has been trashed.

Prosecutor Senior Constable Mark Herman said Turner set up the “Benders root rate” page on Facebook in June last year. ‘Benders’ is a local slang term for Bendigo.

“He has invited people to join the group and make comments rating their past sexual partners,” he said.
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“He posted them on the wall of the “root rate” feed. The page was not blocked and anyone could view it.”

Senior Constable Herman said a woman complained to police on June 2 about being named and sexually degraded on the site.

He said the woman was one of hundreds of people – some as young as 13 and 14 – who had sexually explicit things written about them on the site.

Senior Constable Herman said Turner was arrested on September 18 and made full admissions to helping create and administer the site.

“He said he had not read any of the messages before posting them on to the wall because there were too many,” he said.

Turner told police he created the page “out of boredom” and because there was “nothing to do”.

Informant Senior Constable Cameron Dean said his investigation into the page had unearthed half a dozen similar sites and a “massive” number of victims.

But Senior Constable Dean said only one girl – herself still under 18 – was prepared to take her complaint to court.

Turner’s lawyer Alex McLennan tried to argue that might have been because none of the others were offended by the site, but Senior Constable Dean dismissed that excuse.

“I’m assuming they were a little embarrassed by it. They didn’t want to go to court, especially with everything that had been in the media,” he said.

Senior Constable Dean said it had been hard to investigate the crime because Facebook was based in the United States.

He said police tracked down the accused through a story published in the Bendigo Advertiser.

Turner confessed to a Bendigo Advertiser journalist that he set up the page and issued an apology through the paper.

Senior Constable Dean said it was this admission that led to Turner’s arrest in September.

Mr McLennan said Turner’s creation of “Benders root rate” was a decision made by a young man using poor judgment.

But he argued that Turner’s culpability was diminished because he didn’t write the offending comments.

“He created the page out of curiosity. He had heard of them in other towns but noticed there wasn’t one in Bendigo,’’ Mr McLennan said.

“Within 24 hours he had 1000 comments in his inbox and 3000 friend requests. He acted recklessly in posting these up without filtering them.”

But Senior Constable Herman said the offending was at the “extreme” end of the scale.

“This victim is not only a victim on the day it occurred but is a victim for life. She will have constant reminders,” he said.

“The community have been absolutely outraged by this. A clear message needs to be sent.

“A term of imprisonment is entirely warranted.”

Magistrate Ian Von Einem said a victim impact statement had brought home to him the serious effects of the Facebook page.

“She is a young girl, still in school… her name has been trashed and she is worried it will affect future job opportunities.”

Mr Von Einem said he wanted to set an example. “But given these circumstances… and due to what I see as some naivety on your behalf, I am prepared to suspended this sentence.”

On top of the six-month suspended sentence, Mr Von Einem placed Turner on a community corrections order for 15 months, including 150 hours of community work and a sex offender assessment.

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Read more:

Facebook sex page creator rapped by Bendigo court

Watchdog clamps down on Facebook

August 6, 2012

Julian Lee

Media writer

________________________________________________________________________________

Promotional … the Advertising Standards Board has ruled that company Facebook pages are advertising and must comply with codes and laws. Photo: Karl Hilzinger

A LANDMARK ruling that Facebook is an advertising medium – and not just a way to communicate – will force companies to vet comments posted by the public to ensure they are not sexist, racist or factually inaccurate.

In a move that could change the nature of the social networking site forever, companies could be fined or publicly shamed for the comments that appear on their Facebook ”brand” pages.

Last month the advertising industry watchdog issued a judgment in which it said comments made by ”fans” of a vodka brand’s Facebook page were ads and must therefore comply with industry self-regulatory codes and therefore consumer protection laws.

A media lawyer is warning that the Advertising Standards Board’s ruling on Smirnoff’s Facebook page will put the onus back on companies to be more vigilant about the nature of the comments people are posting to their company pages.
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Large advertisers such as Qantas, Telstra and Coles are increasingly reliant on their Facebook pages to get consumers to ”like” them and get free referrals to their network of friends.

John Swinson, a partner at law firm King & Wood Mallesons, said the board’s ruling “turned people’s opinions into statements of facts”.

Mr Swinson said that if, for example, a member of the public posted a comment on Smirnoff’s site that claimed it was the purest Russian vodka and would lead to success with the opposite sex and Smirnoff failed to remove it, the company could be liable on a number of counts.

“Smirnoff is Australian not Russian. So that is false. It may not be the purest so that could also be misleading.

”And to imply that you would have greater success with girls would contravene the advertising codes,” said Mr Swinson.

In a note to clients, Mr Swinson warned that the standards that govern regular TV, radio or billboard advertising might now apply to third-party posts on Facebook pages.

And because the competition watchdog is cracking down on claims made by companies in social media – principally by people who are paid to do so – Mr Swinson warns that advertisers could end up in court.

Misleading and deceptive advertising is covered by Australian consumer law and each month the ad regulator publicly censures errant advertisers.

Although the Advertising Standards Board dismissed the original complaint about Smirnoff, which centred on sexism, under-age drinking and obscene language, it ruled industry codes applied not only to what a company was posting on its Facebook page but to the user-generated comments that followed.

The board’s determination also cited a recent case of a health company, Allergy Pathway, which was fined for allowing misleading and deceptive “testimonials” to remain on its Facebook and Twitter pages.

The board’s comments threatened to have “far-reaching ramifications” for social media, which thrived on people’s ability to share information quickly, said a consultant, Thomas Tudehope.

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“Men call me things”

Campaign to fight misogyny ‘flawed’
Michelle Griffin
November 9, 2011 The Age

A TWITTER campaign to highlight anonymous abuse could do more harm than good, warns Australian cyber safety expert Susan McLean.

Using the hashtag #mencallmethings, women in Australia, Britain and the US have started reposting violent and defamatory comments made about them online. The aim is to raise awareness of the viciousness of online misogyny, but Ms Mclean fears the campaign will only encourage abuse.

”It will only inflame the situation,” said Ms McLean, a former police officer who has been working on cyber bullying cases since 1994. Women who receive anonymous threats of rape or assault should go to the police and campaign to get the cases prosecuted, she said, noting the speed with which police tracked down alleged ”collar-bomber” Paul Peters from an anonymous Gmail account.

——————————————————————————————————–

Now hang on Susan. There’s a distinct flavour of “cop-speak”  in your statement.

Cop-speak...shifting the blame... in a northerly direction

It’s the misogynist men who make the comments in the first place. They have inflamed the situation, not the women who are fighting back.

Secondly, the “collar-bomb” incident was a critical major hostage incident which was appropriately and successfully dealt with by following correct police procedure. It has nothing to do with sexism or misogyny – the victim could just as well have been a young man or another family member.

It was not in the same crime category as the insidious and ongoing hatred shown by misogynist comments on social media.

Susan McLean’s reaction sounds too much like some of the official reaction to the Slutwalk protesters, as well as reminding us of the comments made by senior Victoria Police when Indian students were being attacked. In other words

…it’s the victim’s fault shhhh…

”Sometimes the police will say go away, there’s nothing they could do. They try and fob off people … but it will embarrass police forces around Australia if they were bombarded with these complaints and then they failed to act.”

Susan, police often fail to act . Social media like Facebook and Twitter are often indifferent.

——————————————————————————————————–

The #mencallmethings campaign was launched on Monday by US blogger Sady Doyle.

”People don’t often talk about it, because that’s seen as complaining or whining,” Ms Doyle told The Age.

The campaign does not target the internet trolls who provoke arguments, Ms Doyle said. It’s about exposing personal hatred aimed at women online. ”These people aren’t just saying they hate women in order to get a reaction; they mean it.”

Many columnists, including anti-porn campaigner Melinda Tankard Reist, Princesses and Pornstars author Emily Maguire and Melbourne SlutWalk founder Clementine Bastow, welcomed the campaign.

”I’m absolutely sick and tired of individual creeps telling us they’re going to rape us or kill us,” said social commentator Nina Funnell. ”For so long, we’ve been told to lighten up … But these comments are reflective of a deep misogyny.

”When you get anonymous attacks, you don’t know who those people are … it can lead to paranoia. You have no idea of your level of safety.”

——————————————————————————————-

Women could send screen grabs of misogynist abuse to anti-discrimination site The Anti Bogan, a spokesman for the site said. ”Censorship gets nowhere, but by naming and shaming, we can give these people the publicity they deserve.” The site has exposed Australians by name for racist comments on websites and Facebook.

Please do so

theantibogan@gmail.com

———————————————————————————————-

You can deal with abuse when you know the source, says parenting expert Dannielle Miller, who received an apology after the Facebook page of Australian kickboxing champion John Wayne Parr featured the comment: ”If there was ever a question some females should be punched in the face … ” alongside photos of Ms Miller, Kerri-Anne Kennerley and News Ltd columnist Angela Mollard.

Ms Miller didn’t fear Mr Parr, but she worried that the kickboxer’s fans might take him literally. ”My family were very worried and telling me I had to be careful.”

Elsewhere Troll attack campaign goes viral

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