Sydney gang rapes trigger race tension

A gang rape trial that culminated in one of the longest prison sentences in Australian history has triggered accusations of racism and inflamed ethnic tensions in Sydney's volatile outlying suburbs.

The gang leader, known only as X, was jailed for 55 years for his part in the rapes, which were carried out by 14 youths, all of Lebanese Muslim origin. The group terrorised western Sydney in August 2000, attacking seven women during a three-week spree that was planned and co-ordinated by mobile phone.

The men's ethnic background has been highlighted by police and politicians, who insist that they specifically targeted white Australian girls. The sentence, harsher than the penalty handed down to most multiple murderers, has sparked a furious debate and exposed deep cracks in Sydney's tolerant veneer.

A backlash is already taking place in the deprived western suburbs, which one community leader described as a tinder-box. Muslim women have been harassed, and some have had their veils ripped off. A television camera crew was beaten up outside a mosque after conducting interviews following Friday prayers.

In the arguments raging in pubs and offices, no one disputes that the rapists are wicked and their crimes repugnant. One 18-year-old girl was lured from a railway station and assaulted up to 25 times by 14 men. The trial judge called the ringleader "a menace to civilised society" and said the rapes were of a nature usually seen only in war zones.

What some are questioning, though, is whether the rapes were racially motivated – and whether the punishment fits the crime. Many white Australians were enraged by the notion that foreigners were "raping our women". Police were at pains to point out that the offenders were of "Middle Eastern appearance" and that all the victims were white.

When the first defendants stood trial last year, any racial motive was rejected. But the judge trying the latest batch, Justice Michael Finnane, disagreed. He noted that one victim, according to her testimony, was called "an Aussie pig", while another was told she would be raped "Leb-style". Another girl was asked if she preferred giving oral sex to Lebanese or Australian men.

Those three remarks were enough to convince the tabloid press and much of the public that the rapes were fuelled by hatred of white Australians. Some claimed that the case was proof that multiculturalism was not working. The state opposition leader, John Brogden, said of the ringleader, who was 18 at the time: "I hope he rots in jail." Other Australians are dismayed that the actions of one group of men are being seized on to stigmatise an entire community – in many cases by people who vehemently opposed the arrival of Middle Eastern asylum seekers. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicolas Cowdery, QC, has said it was gang culture that fostered the rapes, not race or religion.

Lawyers say the sentence given to X, who was ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years, is disproportionate and, far from acting as a deterrent, could increase the likelihood of rape victims being killed. They point to the age of the offender, who will be over 60 when he leaves jail, and ask how rehabilitation fits into this scheme. The sentence is more severe than the terms being served by some of Australia's most notorious criminals, including Julian Knight, who shot seven people dead on a Melbourne street in 1987, and Jeffrey Hardy, who raped eight children and two disabled adults at knifepoint in 1998.

As some have noted, gang rape is not a new phenomenon in Australia. Perpetrated by just about every community, including the Anglo-Celtic majority, it has been a scar on society since convict days. Many Sydneysiders recall the three Murphy brothers, who abducted a nurse in 1986, raped her for two hours and left her bleeding to death. One detail they probably do not recall is that the Murphys were Irish Catholics. That fact never featured in the case.

I taught young Arab men in college some years back, and I waited tables where they were the customers (ordering liquor, I might add, quite openly and regularly). If you would understand this trend, and I don't think it an incident, but a trend...visit a large college campus sidewalk cafe, order a big coffee, and OBSERVE the passing story.

Watch the young Arabs watching girls (I always enjoy watching boys watching girls, but this is different). The way Arabs look at young women is a very different thing. No wholesome American leer, no longing appreciation, but a nasty hostility mixed in with a very weird kind of angry lust. Check their eyes. Boy, did this used to bother me at the head of the classroom! Younger then, I was acquainted with perusal, but the Arabs gave me the willies.

With a little experience, you'll be able to pick out the Muslims vs. the Hindus. Hindus do not have this anger and nastiness. Talk about your profiling, a sensitive woman might be of use in an airport...

Do not allow your daughters to date these men.

I recommend "Nine Parts of Desire" by Brooks, a leftish woman journalist from the West who spent much time in the ME. Upon being entertained by a Saudi lordling, who imported all kinds of hookers from the Phillipines and Europe, she managed to ask him how he justified such behavior with the Koran.

Interestingly, it is most easily justified by the Koran. Taking advantage of infidel harlots is part of seizing "captives" of the faith. Mohammed dragged quite a few home to his harem himself. Technically, you're supposed to gain permission from the woman ante-rape, but I doubt this injunction is regarded with much seriousness. Muslim males with money and power can do anything they please with full approval of Allah. As clever Aisha the child-bride said when Mohammed got permission from On High to take yet another wife, "How Allah hurries to please you."

(Really blew my mind to watch the Taliban captive men on TV walking around holding hands with each other like little children. This is not a culture we can begin to relate to...)

While in my time serving drinks and food, and teaching the repellant , hot-eyed, oil princes, I noticed a lot of American women lacking my distaste. Didn't seem to notice that chronic hateful glare, or perhaps the dizzy blonde masochists found it erotic. Anyway, we read now of how these women are crying to the State Department because the Muslim men have run home to Mullah with their children...

Another good article in The National Post: Wonder how long or what has to happen before the rest of left wing Europe sits up and takes notice. (not to mention North America)

http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id={7C7BF9B5-FABA-410F-B6BC-0B695DEF9118}

Muslim extremism: Denmark's had enough

Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard
National Post

A Muslim organization in Denmark announced a few days ago that a $30,000 bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews, a threat that garnered wide international notice. Less well known is that this is just one problem associated with Denmark's approximately 200,000 Muslim immigrants. The key issue is that many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country.

For years, Danes lauded multiculturalism and insisted they had no problem with the Muslim customs -- until one day they found that they did. Some major issues:

- Living on the dole. Third-World immigrants -- most of them Muslims from countries such as Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iraq -- constitute 5% of the population but consume upwards of 40% of the welfare spending.

- Engaging in crime. Muslims are only 4% of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.

- Self-imposed isolation. Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish to mix less with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5% of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.

- Importing unacceptable customs. Forced marriages -- promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death -- are one problem. Another is the vocal intent to kill Muslims who convert out of Islam.

- Fomenting anti-Semitism. Muslim violence threatens Denmark's approximately 6,000 Jews, who increasingly depend on police protection. Jewish parents were told by one school principal that she could not guarantee their children's safety and advised to send them to another institution. Anti-Israel marches have turned into anti-Jewish riots. One organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, openly calls on Muslims to "kill all Jews ... wherever you find them."

- Seeking Islamic law. Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough -- a not-that remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.

Other Europeans (such as the late Pim Fortuyn in Holland) have also grown alarmed about these issues, but Danes first made them the basis for a change in government.

In a momentous election last November, a centre-right coalition came to power that -- for the first time since 1929 -- excluded the socialists. The right broke its 72-year losing streak and won a solid parliamentary majority because it promised to handle immigration issues, the electorate's first concern, differently from the socialists.

The next nine months did witness some fine-tuning of procedures: Immigrants now must live seven years in Denmark (rather than three) to become permanent residents; most non-refugees no longer can collect welfare cheques immediately on entering the country; and no one can bring into the country a spouse under the age of 24. The state prosecutor is considering a ban on Hizb-ut-Tahrir for its death threats against Jews.

These minor adjustments prompted howls internationally -- with European and UN reports condemning Denmark for racism and "Islamophobia," the Washington Post reporting that Muslim immigrants "face habitual discrimination," and a London Guardian headline announcing that "Copenhagen Flirts with Fascism."

In reality, however, the new government barely addressed the existing problems. Nor did it prevent new ones, such as the death threats against Jews, or a recent Islamic edict calling on Muslims to drive Danes out of the Nørrebro quarter of Copenhagen.

The authorities remain indulgent. The military mulls permitting Muslim soldiers in Denmark's volunteer International Brigade to opt out of actions they don't agree with -- a privilege unique to them. Mohammed Omar Bakri, the self-proclaimed London-based "eyes, ears and mouth" of Osama bin Laden, won permission to set up a branch of his organization, Al-Muhajiroun.

Contrary to media reports, the real news from Denmark is not flirting with fascism but getting mired in inertia. A government elected specifically to deal with a set of problems has made minimal headway. Its reluctance has potentially profound implications for the West as a whole.

© Copyright 2002 National Post

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