A heated tussle erupted outside Penrith City Council on 25 November as anti-racists gathered to defend the local Muslim community. For the second time in a month, white supremacists formed in pogrom-like fashion to oppose the construction of the Mohammadi Welfare Association’s (MWA) cultural and religious centre.
The racists – many draped in Australian flags – carried placards inciting anti-Muslim hatred. “Go back to where you came from” and “Penrith says no to Islamic Prayer Hell” read two signs being waved about.
The campaign against the MWA community centre has been driven by Liberal counsellor Marcus Cornish. Cornish says that mosques and Muslim cultural centres “do not fit with the Penrith way of life” and that the proposed centre will be “a crime magnet”. 
His message was countered by local Muslims and community supporters. Shane Gorman, Greens candidate for the state seat of Londonderry, condemned the Islamophobic mobilisation, saying he was “outraged” by the racists.
Addressing the crowd, Dr Atyia Zaidi, an academic at the University of New South Wales, said that the centre will be an open community space as well as a place of worship. She pointed out that the two are not counterposed. Another community leader, Mr Albi, pleaded with the hostile element in the crowd: “We are just like you, we just want to live in peace.” The racists were unmoved and continued making crude gestures and yelling racist taunts throughout his speech. 
Inside, after meeting for two hours, the council approved plans for the MWA centre by a vote of eight to five. The result was a win for those who stood firm against Islamophobia and racism. Local woman Benish Itaider was disgusted by the ferocity of the opposition to the MWA’s plans but was optimistic that it wasn’t reflective of community sentiment. She told Red Flag: “Those who are against the mosque do not represent the people of Penrith.”

Bianca Castka

Racists set back in Penrith

CCTV footage has again exposed police brutality in Sydney.
In June, Einpwi Amon, a Sudanese-Australian high school student, was approached at Blacktown Station. He panicked, ran and tripped down a flight of stairs, knocking himself unconscious. No first aid was given when police reached him. Instead, he was handcuffed.
When Einpwi regained consciousness, six officers surrounded him. Shocked and dazed, he struggled to escape. An officer slammed him to the ground, and he was hit with 50,000 volts from a taser. “When I was tasered, I was already handcuffed … There were six police officers and I still got tasered”, he later told the ABC.
CCTV footage shows commuters arriving at the scene, their shock obvious as Einpwi writhes in agony. Despite his obvious distress, the police became more abusive. “Stand up and walk or you’ll be tasered again”, one officer threatened.
The brutality directed at Einpwi isn’t isolated. Roughly a year earlier, Brazilian student Roberto Curti was tasered after being suspected of stealing a packet of biscuits. He died later that night. A coronial inquest into his death revealed that the police set upon him like an “ungoverned pack, like a group of schoolboys from Lord of the Flies”.
In 2011 there was a similar case. Aboriginal man Philip Bugmy was tasered while kneeling shirtless, with his hands in the air, on the floor of his grandmother's house in Wilcannia. Bugmy was hit directly in the chest, and is still traumatised by the attack. “I sleep at my grandmother’s house and I turn around and I jump at night, and I turn around and it frightens me. You know, ’cause I'm frightened they’re going to run in on me and shoot me again”, he told journalist Lindy Kerin last year.
Tasers were promoted as a “non-lethal” alternative to hand guns. However, statistics from the NSW Police ombudsman show that police firearm use hasn’t declined, and taser use has more than doubled, from 400 discharges in 2009 to almost 900 in 2011.
The ombudsman reports that 74.2 percent of discharges occurred when the subject had no weapon. A review of taser use also showed that the cops feel much more comfortable using them on black people: almost 30 percent of victims are Indigenous.
We are told that the police exist to “serve and protect” ordinary people, but cases like those of Einpwi show otherwise. Tasers and hand guns should be taken off NSW cops, as it is always the oppressed who end up on the receiving end.

Racists set back in Penrith

Police violence continues in western Sydney

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