New South Wales police are investigating a potential hate crime after Islamophobic graffiti was painted on a busy underpass in Sydney’s west, with the premier labelling it “disgusting”.
The graffiti was spotted on Hector Street in Chester Hill overnight. Police cordoned off the road and launched an investigation on Sunday morning.
“Fuck Islam” was graffitied on each side of the underpass, with the word “Islam” highlighted in yellow. “Cancel Islam” was also painted on to an ad in the underpass.
NSW police said if someone was arrested they would “likely” be charged with a hate crime. Chester Hill has one of the largest Muslim populations in the state, with nearly 40% of residents identifying as Muslim, according to census figures.
The graffiti was near a busy shopping area that includes numerous halal restaurants and grocers.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, called the graffiti “disgusting”.
“Vandalism like this that is aimed at particular religions is designed to incite hatred and is completely abhorrent,” he said.
“This racism and Islamophobia is disgusting and corrosive to the very fabric of the successful multicultural state that we have built here in NSW.”
The federal minister for home affairs, Tony Burke, labelled the graffiti an act of “hatred” and “bigotry”.
“Like other forms of dehumanising abuse, Islamophobia has no place in Australia,” the minister said.
Jason Clare, a fellow federal minister and the local MP for Blaxland, called the vandalism a “gutless attack on our community”.
“This is disgusting,” Clare said. “People in my community are hurting because of the conflict in the Middle East. “There is no place in Australia for Islamophobia.”
A spokesperson for the Australian National Imams Council called for “immediate and decisive action” from federal and state governments to address what it described as a “surge” in Islamophobic incidents.
“This rise in hate crimes and discriminatory behaviour highlights a critical failure to address systemic Islamophobia effectively,” the council said on Sunday.
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“Governments at all levels must recognise this escalating crisis and implement robust measures to combat it … to ensure the safety and well-being of all communities in Australia.”
The organisation called on governments to strengthen anti-racism policies and police to “prioritise hate crime investigations”.
The Islamophobia register – which has documented Islamophobic incidents across Australia since 2014 – has said it receives daily reports of intimidation, discrimination, verbal abuse, physical assaults and online hate targeting Muslims.
Last week, the register criticised Liberal senator Dave Sharma’s claim that Islamophobia was “fictitious”.
The register said there had been a 600% increase in reported incidents of Islamophobia over the past year and that “lived experiences … demonstrate that Islamophobia is not only real but also escalating to unprecedented levels, posing a serious threat to the safety of Muslims”.
The prime minister and the NSW premier last week condemned anti-Israel graffiti in Sydney’s east, which came days after an arson attack at the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne.
Minns on Wednesday described the graffiti in Woollahra as “shocking” antisemitism.
A special federal police taskforce is investigating antisemitism across Australia after the terrorist attack on the Adass synagogue.
In late November the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said there had been a 316% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in the 12 months to October.
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