Posted on 07/13/2002 5:10:44 PM PDT by Michael2001
So now we know the facts, straight from the Supreme Court, that a group of Lebanese Muslim gang rapists from south-western Sydney hunted their victims on the basis of their ethnicity and subjected them to hours of degrading, dehumanising torture. The young women, and girls as young as 14, were "sluts" and "Aussie pigs", the rapists said. So now that some of the perpetrators are in jail, will those people who cried racism and media "sensationalism" hang their heads in shame? Hardly.
The journalists, academics, legal brains and politicians who tried to claim last August that the gang rapes of south-western Sydney were just a run-of-the-mill police blotter story being beaten up by racists, scaremongers and political opportunists don't ever want to acknowledge the truth about that ugly episode in Australian history. They don't want to acknowledge the fear and tension that ran through a part of Sydney they rarely visit and can never understand.
This newspaper was the first to report the story, which had been common knowledge in police and media circles, and it has never censored the race element.
Even last week, with the conviction of two brothers for their part in the gang rape of Miss D, who was 16 when she was held at gunpoint in a Greenacre park, there were media outlets that downplayed the story and air-brushed race from it.
Yet the victims have been crying out for the truth to be told. In court on Friday, one victim gave another a card on which she had written
"Truth is Justice".
In August, when Judge Megan Latham handed out laughably lenient sentences to three men in one gang rape case, which were later more than doubled on appeal, she made a special point of debunking the race link: "There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences," she said. "There is nothing said or done by the offenders which provides the slightest basis for imputing to them some discrimination in terms of the nationality of their victims."
Except that later one of the victims complained her victim impact statement had been "censored" of any "ethnic" references by prosecutors intent on a plea bargain. She was convinced she was raped because of her ethnicity. "You deserve it because you're an Australian," the rapists told her during the five-hour attack.
It's just so inconvenient of the victims to insist on telling the truth.
"I looked in his eyes. I had never seen such indifference," one 18-year-old victim, codenamed Miss C, told the court, remembering one of the 14 men who called her "Aussie pig", gang raped her 25 times over a six-hour period in Bankstown and Chullora, and then turned a hose on her. "I'm going to f*** you Leb style," he said.
Fourteen gang rapists have been convicted, or pleaded guilty, thanks to the courage of seven victims who testified for days in court as their tormentors smirked nearby, the men's families threatened them and defence lawyers suggested they had enjoyed the rapes.
"They're very brave, very strong and very courageous young women," said Salvation Army Major Joyce Harmer, who held the hands of many of the victims through the trials. "They knew this was something they had to do."
There were encouraging signs by the end of the week that some Muslim community leaders were talking of "Muslims accepting responsibility that they may have failed to do things that would have prevented these things from happening", as Amjad Mehboob, chief executive for the Federation of Islamic Councils, told ABC Radio on Friday.
Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, said: "It is certainly a disgrace to our community that people who were born to a Muslim family would commit such heinous crimes." But he went on to say it was "rather unfair" that the rapists' ethnicity had been reported "because these boys themselves have completely disaffiliated themselves from their culture or their religion".
Yes, it is unfair that the vast bulk of law-abiding Lebanese Muslim boys and men should be smeared by association. But their temporary discomfort may be necessary so that the powerful social tool of shame is applied to the families and communities that nurtured the rapists, gave them succour and brought them up with such a hatred of Australia's dominant culture and contempt for its women that they think of an 18-year-old girl, dressed for a job interview in her best suit, sitting on a train reading a book, as a slut.
These were racist crimes. They were hate crimes. The rapists chose their victims on the basis of race. That fact is crucial to this story. If the perpetrators had been Anglo-Celtic Australians, the furore would have been enormous. No newspaper would have left out that fact and you can bet the guilt and shame would have been spread far and wide.
You're not right mate! Read the article once again: the girls were raped at the gun point... so some do have guns in Australia, they're forbidden only for the victims of the crims.
Well, we know they are not, of course.
I remember hearing a debate between a Univerisy Professor and a Christian Apologist. The Professor argued that all cultures were the same.
The other man said, suppose he had the power to deport the man forever to another nation.
"Fine with me!"...said the professor.
"All right then. But first, in one of these countries they love their relatives, and in the other they eat them. Do you have a preference?"
Islam is at war with the West. These poor girls are some of its victims.
Disgust and anger. The Daily Telegraph is very good at measuring the public mood. Most people here would like to see these scum dancing on air at the end of a length of hemp. Polls consistently show that well over 70% of Australians support the re-introduction of the death penalty for brutal crimes like the Helen Morse or Anita Cobby killings. Whether they would support it for serial rapists is not so assured but in the current atmosphere my guess is, yes.
Would you mind elaborating on the observations that prompted this comment? Thanks in advance.
In fairness those who speak for the "Islamic community" often, even usually, do NOT genuinely represent Muslims, at least in the West. The Western "Wahhabi Lobby" has essentially "stolen the microphone" in the form of groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or the American Muslim Council (AMC) which function much like the Commie-front "civil rights" groups of the thirties through the Cold War. Daniel Pipes, and his Muslim co-author Khalid Duran, explained this back in 1993, in the wake of the first WTC attack:
Muslims in the West: Can Conflict Be Averted?
Also see some of the FR articles I've indexed under the keyword "Moderate Muslims".
There is no SOW like Allah, and Muhammad is her pimp.
I like that a lot! You've improved the phrase...thank you!
As someone who has worked as a teacher and waitress around young Arab/Muslim men, I can say that I've never been looked at with the kind of reptile nastiness that came from these young men. It was really kind of frightening--would make you appreciate a good old healthy leer. This is how you can tell a ME Hindu from a Muslim, when they are of similar appearance. Just pay attention to how he looks at women.
You forgot this guy?
These girls were so courageous!... to stand up against those creeps publicly and see the justice to be made.
If they had small .22s in their purses they would shoot the balls of that Muslim animals away right there.
It's a huge story, swamping today's press and talk radio. One extraordinarily disgusting development occurred on this morning's John Laws Show. (Laws' show fills the same size slot as Limbaugh's does, Stateside.) A Muslim fiancee of one of the convicted men, "Angie", phoned in, to defend him and the five other rapists (out of fourteen) who had pleaded not guilty. She blamed the rape victims for lying in Court, and accused the police of forging evidence to get their convictions. 'My fiancee wouldn't do something like that.' It was grotesque self-delusion. Reminded me of the young women who supported Ted Bundy through his trial. Another low point was reached on this afternoon's Philip Clark Show when yet another Muslim female caller blamed the Australian girls, for dressing provocatively. 'It takes two to tango', was one of her quotes. Sickening stuff. If I had my way they would trace those calls and put both of them on the boat straight back to Lebanon.
..tolerance for sexual offenses? There is so much of it, and there always has been...
I have to strongly dispute that. I cannot imagine what kind of circles you move in, to have formed that view.
...pack-rape is a tradition in some parts of Australia...
The only places I can think of where that holds true are Aboriginal communities, like Doomagee and Mornington Island, from where I've heard first-hand accounts of such events. No way is it a 'tradition' in Anglo Australia.
..the rape and murder of Leigh Leigh, on the northern beaches of NSW, is a case in point. Everyone knew that she had been pack-raped prior to her murder, but only one man was charged. The community she was in regarded these offenses as part of the "beach culture" of surfie gangs....
Absolutely not. That failure was due to the incompetence of the investigating police, not Newcastle culture. Will return to address the remainder of your very interesting post tomorrow.
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