Reporting on immigrant communities
– Sudanese immigrants in two regional centres
Newcastle – critical incidents
1. Brawl – Islington Baptist Church (reporting period December
4-18, 2004)
During this period, only three articles referring to the Sudanese community
were published in the Newcastle Herald. The first was a short
article on December 14 that reported on a brawl between members of the
Sudanese community at an Islington church on December 11. The article
reported that the incident occurred during elections for a leader and
board members for a new community group and that mediators had been asked
to conduct a meeting between the opposing groups. Simon Parbek, who made
numerous statements on behalf of the Sudanese community following the
January 2005 critical incident, was reported as saying the altercation
was based on personal issues.
The second article was an opinion piece published in the weekend magazine
section of the newspaper on December 18. It related the story of one Sudanese
refugee woman and some of the difficulties her family had experienced
in adapting to life in Australia. The third article, also published on
December 18, was a short piece describing a Christmas concert being held
to raise funds for the Sudanese community.
These articles made no mention of any tensions or problems with the Sudanese
refugees within the wider Newcastle community. The second and third articles
made references to the contributions and support offered by Novocastrians
to the Sudanese community, and implied that the refugees were a welcome
addition to the city. The first article constructed the incident as an
internal community issue and noted that although police had been called
to the scene, no charges had been laid. This critical incident was later
referred to in some of the reports on the January 2005 critical incident.
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