CANBERRA (Reuters)
Australian police broke up a large crowd protesting on Wednesday night against plans to build an Islamic school on Sydney's rural outskirts, with some vowing to assault Muslim students and their families if it proceeds.
A male protester told local radio outside a meeting called to oppose the school's construction that if it was approved, "about 30 Aussies" would attack any Muslim who showed up.
Community tensions have been rising in the small town of Camden, on Sydney's south-west fringe, over plans by the Quranic Society to build a school for 1,200 pupils.
Two pigs heads were rammed on to metal stakes and an Australian flag draped between them on the site of the proposed school last month in a protest that raised fears of a repeat of racially-motivated riots on a Sydney beach in December 2005.
Almost 1,000 local residents tried to cram into the protest meeting in Camden, with police forming a line and barricading doors to the venue to keep around 200 outside.
"Let us in Mohamed. You're already dividing our town," young men clutching Australian flags and banners reading "Aussie Pride" shouted at security guards. Mounted police sealed off streets.
Relations between non-Muslim Australians and Muslims have been strained since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Australia has deployed troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Race riots erupted at Sydney's Cronulla Beach two years ago as the predominately Anglo-Saxon residents attacked anyone of Middle East appearance, believing they were Muslims intent on taking over their beach.
Camden Council claims to have received thousands of written objections to the school and will decide in March 2008 on whether to allow it to be built.
State upper house Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile attended the meeting and quoted from the Koran to a reportedly receptive crowd about Islam's opposition to Christianity.
"All the Aussies that are celebrating carols by candlelight this week all over Australia, millions of Australians, are condemned by the Koran," Nile told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Thursday.
Nile told the meeting he did not want Australia to become complacent about Muslim immigration, calling for a moratorium on new arrivals, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Today there are about 280,000 Muslims in the 21 million population, living predominantly in Sydney and Melbourne. |
