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Consultative Structure
Community Relations
Media Analysis
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Case Study Three |
Terrorism raids November 2005
4. The dust settles (reporting period November 12-14, 2005)
Suspects The Age revealed that further suspects remained under surveillance after the raids, while The Australian identified a man believed to be the informant whose information had led to the raids. The report used an alias for the man but published his first name. It revealed he was a Muslim convert who had trained at an overseas terrorist camp, and had previously been a part of Abdul Nacer Benbrika’s prayer group. Benbrika was singled out as the group’s ringleader by The Australian, in a page 1 report entitled “The day one man infected a community with hatred”. The article detailed the conversion to radicalism of Benbrika and his followers following a visit to Australia by al-Qa’ida spiritual leader Abu Qatada. Following Qatada’s sermons, a number of young men followed Benbrika when he split from the moderate Preston mosque and began pursing a radical interpretation of Islam. The report detailed Benbrika’s trajectory from a young immigrant learning more about Islam to a radical fundamentalist increasingly isolated and marginalised within the Islamic community. It described his followers as “hardened street boys … who saw in Benbrika a father figure and a way to reclaim their lost souls”. The Age reported extensively on the family backgrounds, education and beliefs of numerous Melbourne suspects, in an article entitled “What went wrong?”. The report noted that the suspects came from rural Lebanese families who had fled the sectarian conflict in the 1970s, coming to Australia for a peaceful life free from religious persecution. The prosecution case was also described in detail, as were previous arrests and police encounters among the group. The Herald Sun provided more details about the Sydney suspects and published a brief interview with one suspect’s wife. Radical Islam in Australia Following Qatada’s visit to Australia in 1994, described in The Australian, a few fundamentalist clerics developed prayer groups devoted to following the strict, radical interpretation of Islam that Qatada espoused. These clerics brought political issues into their discussion of Islamic faith, and small groups of militant fundamentalist followers coalesced. A subset of articles about the suspects described their place within this developing network of radicals, and a group of feature articles in The Australian and The Age described these developments in great detail. One article entitled “Self-confessed militants found refuge in Australia” described the background of numerous refugees accepted by Australia in the 1990s who were involved with fundamentalist and militant Islamic groups in their home countries. The development of radical Islam and terrorist networks was described in great detail in “Terror turns into a growth industry”. The impact of the raids on the Australian community was explored in “Nervous nation, trying times …” while the Herald Sun asserted that “War is here, so take it seriously”. While these articles attempted to place the suspects and their beliefs in the wider discussion about of the impact of radical Islam, they also had a distinctive “fear-mongering” element that was not present in the reporting of the previous days. Muslim Community Reactions from the community varied but continued to emphasise the moderate views of the mainstream Muslim majority. While one Muslim cleric, Sheikh Hilali, condemned the raids as race-driven and stated that the new counter-terrorism laws would oppress Muslims, another expressed his regret for supporting Benbrika in his citizenship application. The experiences of young Muslim men who had been approached by ASIO were reported in The Australian. Solicitors representing members of the Muslim community revealed that they had received regular complaints from people who had been approached by ASIO on flimsy grounds. The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, rejected a call from Prime Minister Howard for the Muslim community to undertake surveillance of its own members. While acknowledging that community leaders played an important role in promoting positive perceptions of Islam, he noted that community organisations could not be expected to act like a police force. His comments were echoed by Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association, who said the PM’s request was “inflammatory”. This reaction was contrasted in the same article with that of one Sydney Muslim family, who said: “If someone does something wrong – no matter if they are Muslim, Hindu or Christian – we would report it.” The most poignant reaction came in the form of a letter in the Herald Sun “… from five Aussie teenagers who happen to be Muslim”. The letter described the difficulties of living as a Muslim teenager in the current climate of the raids and increasing intolerance and racism being displayed towards Australian Muslims. The letter appeared on page 83 of the Sunday edition. One final article of interest was published in the Herald Sun under the headline “The Aussie mates who aren’t alert or alarmed”. The report revealed how one Irish Catholic Australian women decided to find out for herself what Islam was really about and met with a group of Muslim women attending a Melbourne mosque. This led to a friendship between their families, and she urged other to “do what I did … go meet these people”. |
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