Sydney’s racial violence: government campaign continues against Middle Eastern youth

The six men were among some 200 people who gathered at Brighton-le-Sands on the night after the notorious race riot at nearby beachside suburb Cronulla on December 11. In the course of the riot, a drunken mob draped in Australian flags and chanting racist anti-Lebanese slogans attacked people who appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin.

Predictably, the televised images of the disgusting spectacle produced reprisals, including indiscriminate attacks on people and property that allegedly involved around 50 Middle Eastern youth. Since then the government, aided by the media, has worked to push the Cronulla riot into the background, focusing instead on the “revenge attacks” and whipping up hysteria over “Middle Eastern crime” and violence.

Earlier this month, NSW Police Minister Carl Scully phoned senior police officials directing them to seek a second opinion on the cases of the six young men. His intervention followed media reports that the charges against the men were being dropped after police received internal legal advice. Police lawyers, after studying the briefs of evidence, had apparently determined there was nothing to prove any of the six accused had committed acts of disorder or violence.

Nonetheless, following Scully’s phone call, Detective Superintendent Ken McKay confirmed that police were now awaiting external legal advice, but added: “We are required to prove they (the six men) actually did something of a criminal nature....and that’s a difficulty that we have.”

Scully, however, defended his intervention as “proper” saying “the public rightly wanted people rounded up”, adding, almost as a second thought: “That’s always got to be done with regard to the judicial process....” Scully’s move immediately received the backing of NSW Opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Debham. Reflecting the witch-hunt atmosphere being promoted by both political parties, Debham declared: “I would say to the police: you get out there and arrest them for any transgression. Let’s get in their face.”

Scully’s latest intervention is the second time the state Labor government has moved to push police to obtain convictions for the so-called “revenge” attacks. Earlier this year Dennis Bray, the head of Task Force Enoggera—the body investigating the Cronulla riot and its aftermath—was removed after he mistakenly claimed there was no video footage of alleged reprisals by Middle Eastern men. As it turned out, it was impossible to identify individuals from the poor quality video footage taken from various surveillance cameras.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/cron-a24.shtml