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Split in Reclaim Australia group as rallies take place across country George Christensen welcomes Reclaim Australia split, rejecting 'anti-Muslim' element
(about 4 hours later)
Related: Five arrested as Reclaim Australia and anti-racism protesters face off in SydneyRelated: Five arrested as Reclaim Australia and anti-racism protesters face off in Sydney
Organisers of a Reclaim Australia event in Brisbane have announced their split from the organisation to join an explicitly anti-Islam group during one of a string of rallies nationwide that drew heavy police presence amid rival anti-racism demonstrations. Federal government backbencher George Christensen has called for the “weeding out” of “anti-Muslim” elements from Reclaim Australia, saying he would happily attend his local mosque after speaking at one of the group’s rallies.
And in Mackay, a Muslim community spokesman called on federal government backbencher George Christensen to prove he is not a “bigot” by visiting a mosque in his north Queensland electorate following his speech at a Reclaim Australia rally in Mackay. Christensen welcomed the departure of Reclaim Australia organisers in Brisbane to join an explicitly anti-Islam group, during a day of nationwide protests that drew heavy police presence amid heated exchanges with rival anti-racism demonstrators.
Three arrests at a Sydney rally on Sunday morning followed clashes in Melbourne a day earlier where hundreds of police stood between opposing demonstrators, with dozens sprayed with capsicum spray and at least four people arrested. Angry scenes were repeated across the country, a day after clashes in Melbourne where hundreds of police stood between the opposing groups and dozens of people were sprayed with capsicum spray.
In Brisbane, where rally attendees complained of being drowned out by the din of anti-racism protesters, a group of organisers revealed they had split from Reclaim Australia to join “Australians Against Islam”. Police arrested five people in Sydney and two anti-racism protesters in Perth, where opposing crowds numbered 400 people each. Vocal anti-racism demonstrations similarly disrupted Reclaim Australia rallies in Brisbane and Canberra.
“Unfortunately the time has come for the Brisbane admin team to part ways with RAR,” they said on Facebook. “This has not been an easy decision however we will be continuing the fight with a new group who share our desire for stopping Islam, motivation, information sharing, freedom of ideas and a democratic group working as one for the good of all Australians.” Christensen defended his rapport with Muslims in his north Queensland electorate after he was accused of giving tacit encouragement to bigotry by speaking at a rally in Mackay.
The Australians Against Islam website states it “wish(es) to serve as an educational reference and dispel any public myths that Islam may be a peaceful religion”. Former One Nation founder Pauline Hanson also spoke at a rally in Rockhampton where she said there were “divisions happening in our country and it’s purely based on Islam”.
Christensen, who hours before attending the Mackay rally traded barbs on Twitter with Sydney man Zaky Mallah, branding him an “Islamist grub”, said he would leave if protesters sported anti-Islam slogans. Brisbane rally organisers announced mid-rally that they had split from Reclaim Australia to join the group “Australians Against Islam”, which aims to “dispel any public myths that Islam may be a peaceful religion”.
“What the main group [Reclaim Australia] is protesting against is extreme Islam and the ideology of extreme Islam,” Christensen told Fairfax Media. Christensen, who like Hanson sought to draw a distinction between opposing Islam and attacking Muslims, told Guardian Australia that Reclaim Australia “certainly want those people out of there”.
“Obviously it has crossed my mind that we might get ratbags there that might want to hold up placards that say ‘Deport Muslims’ or ‘Down with Muslims’ or whatever. “Hopefully what’s being weeded out are those who would think along the lines that all Muslims should be deported, no one should be allowed to attend a mosque and all that thing,” he said.
“My view is that if those signs are there I will tell them privately to remove those signs, or I go.” “To say you’re anti-Islam, as long as you’re not anti-Muslim, someone can oppose the doctrine of Islam and that’s fine”.
Islamic Council of Queensland spokesman Al Kadri said Christensen was “talking sweet stuff” but had “not done enough research” on Reclaim Australia. “But you need to distinguish always between the religion and converts to the religion. They have every right to believe it just as you have every right to criticise.”
“All you have to do is go to their Facebook page to see that they claim to stand up for Australian values and right to religion and free speech but they want to stifle the right to religious practice of Muslims,” Kadri told Guardian Australia. During his speech – sometimes interrupted by heckling from opponents – Christensen quoted the former US president Ronald Reagan’s warnings about the risk of appeasement.
“They regularly promote banning the mosques. It is in no way, shape or form an organisation which holds Australian values. And to be honest, anyone associated with them, politicians or otherwise, are nothing but bigots in my eyes.” Christensen said: “We will not sit idly by and watch the Australian culture and the Australian lifestyle that we love and that is envied around the world, we’re not going to see that surrendered and handed over to those who hate us for who we are and what we stand for.”
Kadri said Christensen had never visited in the mosque in Mackay, where he said harassment of the Muslim community was the worst in the state. Gesturing to members of the counter-protest, he said: “We will not hand over their free speech to those who hate us. And when Ronald Reagan spoke those words he warned against the threat of the then Soviet Russia, and those words apply equally now to the threat of Islamic extremism and its complicit defenders.”
“Mackay Muslims face more extremism and racism towards them than anybody else: abuse on the street, people drive past and swear at the mosque all the time,” he said. “The apologists of the left, the do-gooders and the politically correct crowd said I shouldn’t address you because you apparently are a crowd of racists, bigots, Islamophobes, extremists, white supremacists, skinheads and Nazis, but when I look here today and I look at this crowd that’s not what I see. What I see is mums and dads who love our country, the Australian culture, the Australian lifestyle and our freedom.”
“By going to rallies like this, George Christensen is going to create extremists here in the guise of patriotism who are going to harm Australians. Hanson told the Rockhampton rally: “I’m not targeting Muslims – I’m targeting the ideology, what Islam stands for – and it is very different to our culture and Christianity.”
“Is [Christensen] a politician representative of all the constituents or is he just representing right wing extremists? He has to make up his mind and come out clearly against that kind of racism too. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, accused the prime minister, Tony Abbott of “giving the green light for his MPs to be in there stirring up the problems” at the rallies.
“If he believes in freedom of religious practice, I urge him to come and visit the mosque. Muslims are affected by radical Islam more than anybody else. More Muslims are killed by terrorists than anybody else.” “I’m deeply concerned if we’re unleashing racism in our community and these scenes of violence are absolutely retrograde,” Shorten said.
Former politician and One Nation founder Pauline Hanson told a Reclaim Australia rally in Rockhampton she was “against the spread of Islam”. Islamic Council of Queensland spokesman Ali Kadri called on Christensen to prove he was not a “bigot” by visiting the mosque in Mackay, where, he said, harassment of local Muslims was the worst in the state.
Hanson attended a rally in Brisbane in April, when eight Nauru immigration detention centre guards posed with her in a picture. They were subsequently suspended for breaching employer guidelines, including by posting anti-Islam sentiments on social media, and one of them was ultimately dismissed. Kadri said Christensen, who he claimed had not visited the mosque, had “not done enough research” on Reclaim Australia.
Mallah – whose appearance on ABC’s Q&A last month resulted in Abbott government ministers boycotting the program – said on Twitter on Saturday: “Conservative Lib rat George Christenson [sic] will be appearing at the Reclaim Australia rally this weekend. Abbotts Gov going down shit hole.” He said the group wanted to “stifle the right to religious practice of Muslims [and] regularly promote banning the mosques”.
Christensen replied early on Sunday: “Spell my name properly you Islamist grub.” “And to be honest, anyone associated with them, politicians or otherwise, are nothing but bigots in my eyes,” Kadri said. “Mackay Muslims face more extremism and racism towards them than anybody else: abuse on the street, people drive past and swear at the mosque all the time. By going to rallies like this, George Christensen is going to create extremists here in the guise of patriotism who are going to harm Australians.”
Christensen said Kadri was “talking out of his hat” as he had previously visited the Mackay Islamic centre to celebrate Ramadan.
“I’ve turned up to the mosque, sat through their prayers, celebrated Ramadan with them, and I’ve never had a crowd wanting to seek as many selfies in my life as when I turned up to that,” he said.
“There are some people with their noses out of joint about it but a lot do understand exactly where I’m coming from.”
Christensen said he had longtime family friends who were Muslims and he would attend the mosque again if invited.
Of harassment of Muslims in Mackay, Christensen said he had “no doubt that there have been times where Muslim people have been attacked by some idiot verbally”.
“It happens everywhere and it’s a bloody shame that people carry on like that,” he said.
Related: Hell will freeze over before I pull out of Reclaim Australia's rally | George ChristensenRelated: Hell will freeze over before I pull out of Reclaim Australia's rally | George Christensen
Mallah, who in 2005 pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Asio officers in 2005 but was acquitted of charges of preparing for a terrorist act, stoked controversy for the ABC after his exchange on Q&A with government MP Steve Ciobo. “But I’ve go to say it’s not just the Islamic community [that suffers racism in Mackay]. Unfortunately racism is one of those ugly things that you’re never going to stamp out.”
In Brisbane police tape and officers separated the Reclaim rally from anti-racism protesters whose chants competed with rally speakers. Christensen said he condemned the position expressed by Australians Against Islam.
One attendee said on Facebook: “I’m here, and discussed [sic] by the loud obnoxious idiots who will not allow the democratic right for us to discuss our concerns. Who are really inciting violence?” “Those people have got to realize that the only way Islam is going to weed out the radicals is through the moderates of Islam truly and firmly taking over the show,” he said.
Comment has been sought from Australians Against Islam. “If you’re going to criticise the entire religion all you’re going to do is ingrain the radicals. At the same time, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be talking about the problem of radical Islam.”
A spokeswoman for Queensland police (QPS) said they had been “monitoring interest in the ‘Reclaim Australia Rallies’ protest movement which is planning activity today in Brisbane”.
“The QPS acknowledges the rights of citizens to voice their opinions however will be seeking to balance this right with public safety concerns associated with large groups of people occupying public space,” she said.
About 100 anti-Islam Reclaim Australia protesters were met by about the same number of people from the Rally Against Racism group in Perth’s Solidarity Park.
The anti-racism group was louder, using megaphones to chant “Muslims are welcome, racism’s not” and shout obscenities. Before police formed a barrier between the two groups, they escorted a man in a Guy Fawkes mask away from the Reclaim Australia camp for “stirring up trouble”.
In Canberra, vocal anti-Islam and anti-racism protesters marched to federal parliament, closing Canberra roads and causing minor traffic delays.
To the tune of Men at Work’s Down Under, the 200 or so protesters clashed with words. Anti-racism protesters outnumbered the 50 people marching for Reclaim Australia.
Roxley Foley, the caretaker of Canberra’s Aboriginal tent embassy, stood behind the Reclaim Australia group with a sign reading “not yours to reclaim”.
“This kind of division, fearmongering and pandering to ignorance in communities is dividing us away from where our real problems are,” he told reporters. As a minority group, Indigenous people knew “all too well” what it was like to be subjected to broad laws that took away liberties and choices, he said.
“When any community or group is going to be marginalised, we’re going to say ‘we know what it’s like and we’re going to stand in solidarity with you’.”
Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press