I was curious what David was referring to - here
is a NYT article carrying an AP dispatch.
- Steve
<http://www.nytimes.com/>
The New York Times
December 13, 2005
Australian Mobs Attack People Believed to Be of Arab Descent
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SYDNEY,
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/australia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>Australia,
Tuesday, Dec. 13 (AP) - Thousands of drunken
white youths attacked people they believed were
of Arab descent at a beach outside Sydney on
Sunday in one of Australia's worst outbursts of ethnic violence.
The attack, apparently prompted by reports that
Lebanese youths had assaulted two lifeguards, led
to retaliation by young men of Arab descent in
several Sydney suburbs on Monday. The young
people fought with the police and smashed 40 cars
with sticks and bats, the police said.
The police had increased the number of officers
patrolling the beach in the Sydney suburb of
Cronulla on Sunday after cellphone text messages
urged people to gather there to retaliate for the attack on the lifeguards.
The police said more than 5,000 white youths,
some wrapped in Australian flags and chanting
racist slurs, had fought with the police,
attacked people they believed to be of Arab
descent and assaulted a pair of paramedics trying
to help people escape the riot. The police fought
back with riot sticks and pepper spray.
Many of the youths had been drinking heavily, the
police said. One white teenager had the words,
"We grew here, you flew here," painted on his
back. Television broadcasts showed a group of
young women attacking another woman.
The rampage on Monday also occurred in Cronulla
and in neighboring Carringbah, said Paul Bugden,
a spokesman for the New South Wales police. Calm was restored by early Tuesday.
On Sunday, 31 people were injured and 16
arrested. On Monday, Mr. Bugden said, there were six arrests and one injury.
Morris Iemma, the premier of the state of New
South Wales, said the police would use video
images and photographs to track down the
instigators of the violence. Prime Minister John
Howard condemned the violence, but said he did
not believe racism was widespread in Australia.
"Attacking people on the basis of their race,
their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally
unacceptable and should be repudiated by all
Australians irrespective of their own background and their politics," he said.
Tensions between youths of Arabic descent and
white Australians have been rising in recent
years, largely because of anti-Muslim sentiment
fueled by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in
the United States and bombings on the Indonesian
island of Bali that killed 202 people, including
88 Australians, in October 2002.
About 300,000 Muslims live in Australia, a majority in large cities.
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html>Copyright 2005
<http://www.nytco.com/>The New York Times Company
At 11:40 AM 12/13/2005 -0300, David wrote:
>Horrible things are happening in Sydney. Is there any XMCAr there to share
>some CHAT thoughts about what's going on?
>
>David D. Preiss Ph.D.
>Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
>www.uc.cl/psicologia
>
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