Peter Dutton on Tuesday wrote to Anthony Albanese on the response to the stabbing spree at a western Sydney church,as both leaders condemned the attack and subsequent riots during which several police officers were injured.
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed while giving a sermon in what police have deemed a terror attack.
As NSW Premier Chris Minns warned against retributory attacks,Islamic leaders condemned the livestreamed stabbing of,an Assyrian Orthodox preacher whose conservative and sometimes contentious sermons had gained a worldwide following.
Police said the stabbing – which set off ugly riots outside a church 35 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD – was suspected to be religiously motivated and perpetrated by a 16-year-old whom authorities noted had made remarks about religion before attacking the priest,a frequent critic of elements of the Islam faith.
Khalil,the chair of the high-profile intelligence committee who was briefed on the incident on Tuesday,said Assyrian Christians were highly sensitive to church assaults because thousands of them came to Australia to escape the murderous Islamic State terror group.
“There were half a million that were displaced and their places of worship destroyed so there were a lot of these community members who fled from Iraq and Syria during that terrible time,” Khalil,a Coptic Egyptian,said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with head of ASIO Mike Burgess and AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw.Dion Georgopoulos
Khalil spoke of the “miracle” of Australia’s multicultural harmony and said most Australians did not want to see “conflicts from overseas playing out in our streets”.
Sukkar,a senior Coalition frontbencher,said Christians from the Arab world had “suffered terrible persecution for centuries”.
“Many would have been disappointed the prime minister couldn’t even mention the Assyrian Christian community as victims,until he was specifically asked by a journalist at theSydney Morning Herald,” Sukkar,a Lebanese Maronite,said.
“The prime minister needs to show some leadership and call out the obvious Islamic extremism that was made clear by the NSW Police.”
Asked what he would say to rattled Christian groups,Albanese said he knew Sydney’s Assyrians and noted they were big contributors to community life. The prime minister before holding a press conference with federal police chief Reece Kershaw and ASIO boss Mike Burgess in Canberra during which they said the stabbing was being treated as a terrorist event.
“[Minister] Chris Bowen as the local federal member who represents much of the Assyrian community in Sydney is with his community this morning. And we will come through this,” Albanese said,adding that he was concerned about the potential radicalisation of the 16-year-old alleged offender.
Dutton defended his reference to Port Arthur when criticising Albanese’s response to rising antisemitism,saying:“The response from the prime minister – in relation to October 7 and the fear that’s being experienced by the Jewish community now,particularly off the back of what we saw on October 9 on the steps of the Opera House and what we saw at Caulfield and elsewhere – it was pathetic,to be honest. To see Australians living with that fear at the moment is truly horrible.”
The Lebanese Muslim Association told reporters of threats to firebomb a mosque in Sydney’s Muslim heartland of Lakemba in response to the church assault.
“We had close to 500 people here. Unfounded,but there were threats,” the association’s Gamel Kheir said.
In a statement,the Australian National Imam Council sought to ease tensions and expressed sympathy with the injured priest:“These attacks are horrifying and have no place in Australia”.
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