Bankstown Woman Abused In Islamophobic Hate Crime
Image: don't.be.likebob/Instagram
A woman has been arrested and charged after racially abusing a Muslim woman and her daughter on Friday afternoon in an Islamophobic attack.
Mariam and her 10 year old daughter were shopping at a Bankstown Kmart wearing matching “stand for Palestine” shirts, reading “from the river to the sea” on the back when she alleges someone started throwing boxes at her in one of the aisles.
When she exited the aisle, a woman started walking towards her, and Mariam managed to record a video of the racial abuse.
A video posted to Instagram shows a woman advancing to the camera with her middle finger raised, before shouting “are you proud of wearing ‘from the river to the sea?’ You are, get f*cked Allah. Every f*cking day. F*ck off!”
Mariam alleges the woman also made a throat-slitting gesture.
In a seperate video, Mariam says she contacted police who said they would send the next car to the store, but after three hours, officers still hadn’t arrived.
“She looked like she could do some physical harm, because prior to recording the video, she had started throwing boxes at me and my daughter in one of the aisles,” Mariam said. “It was really about managing the situation as best as possible for my safety, my daughter’s safety, and everybody else’s safety.”
Locals and supporters rallied outside of Bankstown Police Station after police allegedly failed to contact Mariam for over 24 hours.
The woman was arrested at her home in Parramatta and charged with publicly threatening violence on grounds of religion, behaving in an offensive manner in a public place, using offensive language in a public place and intimidation offences.
She was refused bail to appear before Parramatta local court on Monday.
Islamophobic attacks on the rise
The Mayor of Canterbury-Bankstown, Bilal El-Hayek, made a statement on Facebook about the incident, where he said the behaviour had no place in the community.
“I am also deeply concerned about the alarming increase in Islamophobia, particularly following a similar incident in Chester Hill last week. This rising tide of hatred is unacceptable, and we must take collective action to ensure it does not continue. These incidents only serve to divide us.”
Dr Ziad Bsyouny, an independent candidate for the seat of Watson, also posted a statement condemning the event.
“It reflects a growing trend of hatred and intolerance that is being emboldened by unchecked rhetoric and the failure of leadership to respond equally to attacks against all communities,” the statement read. “Let me be clear- this is what happens when Islamophobic rhetoric is left unchallenged.”
The incident comes after another Islamophobic incident in a similar area.
Just last week, the phrase “f*ck Islam” was graffitied on both sides of a Chester Hill railway underpass, as well as “cancel Islam” over an ad in the underpass.
Premier Minns condemned the act, saying it was indented to incite hatred and was “completely abhorrent”.
“This racism and Islamophobia is disgusting and corrosive to the very fabric of the successful multicultural state that we have built here in NSW.”
This last month has seen multiple acts of both antisemitism and Islamophobia, with anti-Israeli graffiti in Woolhara, the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, and an Islamic college school bus set on fire in Adelaide.
The Islamophobia Register has been documenting Islamophobic acts in Australia since 2014, and said that there has been a 600 per cent increase in reported incidents in the last year, though they note that these reports represent only a fraction of actual incidents.
