Tag: australia

Sending army to protect Sydney’s Jewish community not ruled out by NSW premier

Deploying the army to Jewish areas to protect the community has not been ruled out by the NSW premier as he contemplates security changes following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack. 

At a press conference on Sunday, Chris Minns also warned that Sydneysiders could expect to see more police officers carrying long-armed guns before and beyond New Year’s Eve.

Mr Minns said that “nothing was off the table” in response to a question about the deployment of troops, confirming that discussions about it were ongoing.

“We’re going to look very closely at security programs and measures in the future. We have to do things completely differently,” he said.

“The situation as it currently stands, it can’t continue … there’s a big challenge ahead of us to rebuild Jewish life in Sydney. So I’m not going to take anything off the table.

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Public assemblies banned for 14 days across Sydney as police enforce new powers under protest laws

Public assemblies have been banned for two weeks across Sydney after the NSW Police Commissioner activated powers prescribed after the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach. 

Reforms to the state’s laws on gun ownership and public assemblies were passed by parliament after a marathon debate in the early hours of Christmas Eve in response to the mass shooting on December 14 that left 15 people dead.

Under the laws, the Commissioner has the power to temporarily designate public areas as “restricted” from assemblies following a declared terrorist incident, which was made on the day of the mass shooting.

In a statement, Commissioner Mal Layon said any protest action at this time would “aggravate fear and divisiveness in the community”.

“The NSW Police is committed to exercising these new powers responsibly and transparently,” he said.

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Victoria Moves to Force Online Platforms to ID Users and Expand State Powers to Curb “Hate Speech”

Victoria is preparing to introduce some of the most far-reaching online censorship and surveillance powers ever proposed in an Australian state, following the Bondi Beach terror attack.

Premier Jacinta Allan’s new five-point plan, presented as a response to antisemitism, includes measures that would compel social media platforms to identify users accused of “hate speech” and make companies legally liable if they cannot.

Presented as a defense against hate, the plan’s mechanisms cut directly into long-standing principles of privacy and freedom of expression. It positions anonymity online as a form of protection for “cowards,” creating a precedent for government-mandated identity disclosure that could chill lawful speech and dissent.

During her announcement, Premier Allan said:

“That’s why Victoria will spearhead new laws to hold social media companies and their anonymous users to account – and we’ll commission a respected jurist to unlock the legislative path forward.”

Under the proposal, if a user accused of “vilification” cannot be identified, the platform itself could be held responsible for damages. This effectively converts private platforms into instruments of state enforcement, obligating them to expose user data or face financial risk.

The Premier also announced plans to accelerate the introduction of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Act 2024, which had been due to take effect in mid-2026. It will now be brought forward to April 2026.

The law allows individuals to sue others for public conduct, including online speech, that a “reasonable person” might find “hateful, contemptuous, reviling or severely ridiculing” toward someone with a protected attribute. These protected categories include religion, race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability, among others.

This framework gives the state and private citizens broad interpretive power to determine what speech is “hateful.” As many civil liberties experts note, such wording opens the door to legal action based on subjective offense rather than clear, objective harm.

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Canada’s Security Chief Met with Muslim Leader to Fight ‘Islamophobia.’ Then This Happened.

Dan Rogers, the head of Canada’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, had a friendly meeting recently with the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, Stephen Brown. They got together to discuss ways that the Canadian government could combat “Islamophobia,” but for Rogers, the timing of this meeting was not just bad; it was catastrophic.

Three days after the meeting, a father-and-son team of Muslims in Australia provided an unforgettable demonstration of why so many people fear and dislike Islam when they murdered fifteen Jews and injured forty others on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. But that was in Australia. Surely that sort of thing would never happen in Canada, would it? After all, in lovely Canuckistan, the government has an “Islamophobia czar,” and clamps down hard on anyone who doesn’t think that Islam is the warmest and cuddliest of the world’s religions.

And yet as unbelievable as it was, Canada’s National Post reported Friday that “a 26-year-old Toronto man has been arrested and charged with ISIS-linked terrorism offences and two other men are charged for alleged hate-motivated extremism targeting women and members of the Jewish community.” But, but, Canada has an “Islamophobia czar”!

It all started when police started to investigate “violent incidents of armed men trying to abduct women from the street” back in May and June. It ended up with a Toronto resident named Waleed Khan getting slapped with “various terrorism charges including participating in the activities of a terrorist group, facilitating terrorist activity, terrorist financing and conspiracy to commit murder in association with a terrorist group.” That terrorist group was the Islamic State, or ISIS. 

Khan, along with two accomplices, Osman Azizov and Fahad Sadaat, both of whom are teenagers, also got charged with “kidnapping, attempted kidnapping with firearms, conspiracy to commit sexual assault and hostage taking classed as hate-motivated extremism.” It seems that this armed trio was “hunting women for capture and abuse, or worse.” Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said: “We have arrested three individuals for offences targeting women and members of the Jewish community.” 

Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah added: “What began as armed, coordinated attempts to kidnap women led to significant arrests and charges, stopping a dangerous escalation of hate-motivated crimes and terrorism across the Greater Toronto Area and beyond.”

Let’s see. Targeting women and Jews. Where did they get the idea to do that? Back in 2011, an Egyptian sheikh, Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni, offered an Islamic justification for the sexual enslavement of infidel women. He said that when Muslims are waging jihad against non-Muslims (as the Islamic State believes itself to be doing today), it could seize infidel women as the spoils of war (cf. Qur’an 33:50). He explained that they would then be sold as slaves:

When a slave market is erected, which is a market in which are sold slaves and sex-slaves, which are called in the Qur’an by the name milk al-yamin, “that which your right hands possess” [Qur’an 4:24]. This is a verse from the Qur’an which is still in force, and has not been abrogated. The milk al-yamin are the sex-slaves. You go to the market, look at the sex-slave, and buy her. She becomes like your wife, (but) she doesn’t need a (marriage) contract or a divorce like a free woman, nor does she need a wali [guardian or protector]. All scholars agree on this point — there is no disagreement from any of them.

 Al-Huwayni continued: “When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her.”

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Australian PM vows hate speech crackdown after Bondi Beach attack

PM Albanese announces strict measures against hate, extremism, and antisemitism after mass shooting at Bondi Beach Jewish festival

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised a sweeping crackdown on hate, division and radicalisation on Thursday after a mass shooting killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach.

“Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge, much more,” Albanese told a news conference.

The prime minister outlined a suite of measures to target extremist preachers, impose stiffer punishments, and refuse or cancel visas for people who spread “hate and division”.

As he spoke, mourners gathered for the funeral of a 10-year-old girl among those gunned down while celebrating Hanukkah on Sunday at Sydney’s iconic beach.

Critics in the Jewish Australian community and beyond have assailed the prime minister for not doing more to protect them from rising antisemitism.

New “aggravated hate speech” laws will punish preachers and leaders stoking hatred and violence, Albanese said.

He vowed harsher penalties, too.

Australia would develop a regime for listing organisations with leaders who engage in hate speech, he said.

“Serious vilification” based on race or advocating racial supremacy is to become a federal offence.

The government will also boost the home affairs minister’s powers to cancel or reject visas for people who spread “hate and division”, he said.

Albanese said a task force is being set up with a 12-month mission to ensure the education system “properly responds” to antisemitism.

“Every Jewish Australian has the right to be proud of who they are and what they believe,” he said.

“And every Jewish Australian has the right to feel safe, valued and respected for the contribution that they make to our great nation.”

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Bondi Beach Shows Why Self-Defense Is a Vital Right

At Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, a father-son team of ISIS-inspired terrorists murdered attendees at a celebration of the first day of Hanukkah. One of the attackers was disarmed by a heroic civilian who was shot in the process, while others lost their lives trying to help.

Contrasting Responses to Threats

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded to the shooting with promises to further tighten gun laws in the already restrictive country—a measure more likely to disarm potential victims than to inconvenience those planning a homicidal attack. In the U.S., by contrast, Jews stepped up security by themselves and alongside police. At the request of my wife’s rabbi, I recruited a friend who served as a Force Recon Marine. We strapped on armor and pistols to patrol the crowd at the menorah lighting in Sedona, Arizona. Members of the congregation carried concealed weapons of their own.

Nothing happened, but we were there to deter problems and respond if necessary. There’s a big difference between doubling down on failed state policies and taking responsibility for your own safety.

According to Prime Minister Albanese’s office, after the attack, “leaders agreed that strong, decisive and focused action was needed on gun law reform as an immediate action” and promised “to strengthen gun laws” with further restrictions. Of course, that’s what Australia did in 1996 after the Port Arthur mass shooting. The government banned a variety of firearms, with compensation for their surrender. Compliance was limited and the effort spawned a significant black market for guns.

But Australia’s millions of guns didn’t kill 15 people at Bondi Beach. Two men with known Islamist ties who traveled last month to the Philippines for training at terrorist summer camp committed the murders. They chose guns as their tools, but they could just as easily have used explosives, vehicles, incendiaries, or something else to cause mayhem.

“The issue is not gun laws. It’s hatred of Jews,” Rabbi Daniel Greyber of Durham, North Carolina commented after the Bondi Beach attack.

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There’s No Evidence Australia’s Strict Gun Control Laws Are Effective

emocrats in the United States repeatedly praise Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation law as a successful model to emulate, while many Australians — especially after the Bondi Beach terror attack earlier this week — argue that the confiscation helped but failed to go far enough. Yet the supposed benefits of this policy rest on deeply flawed statistical analysis.

After the Minneapolis school shooting in September, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz claimed, “When they had a school shooting in Scotland or they had an incident in Australia, they simply made changes. … And since they did those things, they don’t have them. We’re an outlier amongst nations in terms of what happens to our children.” Prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, have echoed this praise for Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation law.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reinforced this narrative on Monday after the massacre, stating that a prior administration’s gun laws “have made an enormous difference in Australia and are a proud moment of reform, quite rightly, achieved across the parliament with bipartisan support.” Supporters typically point to declines in firearm homicides and firearm suicides as evidence of success.

Relying on that perceived success, Albanese has promised even stricter gun control, arguing that tighter laws would yield even greater benefits. Policymakers already advocate proposals such as limits on the number of firearms individuals may own and periodic license reviews.

For years, major media outlets — including USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post — have published stories crediting Australia’s 1996–1997 gun confiscation with cutting firearm homicide and suicide rates in half and eliminating mass public shootings.

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Pundits Blame Sydney Slaughter on Protest Slogan

Australian officials are still learning about the individuals who carried out the Bondi Beach attack, killing more than a dozen Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney. But the pundits, with their magnifying glasses and meerschaum pipes, have cracked the case. The culprit is: pro-Palestine protesters.

“When people chant ‘intifada revolution,’ they are revealing something important about their goals and methods,” wrote noted Iraq War enthusiast David Frum (Atlantic, 12/14/25). “Yet in many Western countries, public authorities have been reluctant—or unwilling—to hear the message.” Frum went on:

It is helpful to possess a lexicon of what is typically intended by these vocabularies. Armed struggle means shooting people or blowing them up with bombs. By any means necessary means targeting the most defenseless: children, the elderly, other civilians. Globalize the intifada means shooting or bombing people in Sydney, London, Paris, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City, as well as in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. From the river to the sea means the annihilation of a sovereign democratic state and the mass murder, expulsion and enslavement of much of its population.

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Bondi Beach hero helped disarm terrorist before police mistakenly shot him: report

A man who rushed in to help disarm one of the terrorists who fired at a crowd celebrating Hanukkah in Australia’s famous Bondi Beach was mistakenly shot by police and tackled by bystanders, according to a new report.

The heroic civilian, who was only described as a Middle Eastern refugee living with his Australian wife and kids, was in Bondi Beach when Naveed Akram, 24, and his father Sajid, 50, allegedly opened fire at a crowd of Jewish revelers.

At least 15 people were killed in the attack and dozens others injured.

Harrowing video shows the moment the good Samaritan runs up the bridge where the gunmen were firing from after one of them was hit by police returning fire, the Daily Mail reported.

The man quickly sneaks up on the downed shooter and begins kicking his rifle out of reach before the gunman can grab it.

The quick-thinking civilian then begins to raise his hands and back away from the scene, but gunfire continues to ring out as he shouts, “Don’t shoot.”

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Australia Police Refuse to Comment on Motive of Hanukkah Terror Attack, Father and Son Identified as Suspects

Australian police said that they will not be commenting yet on the motive behind the terror attack allegedly committed by a father and son duo.

According to New South Wales Police, the death toll of the terrorist attack on a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday has risen to 16. A total of 42 people were hospitalised or received care elsewhere, two of whom have since died. Included among the dead are a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Five people remain in critical condition, and four police officers are in serious condition after sustaining gunshot wounds.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon disclosed that the two suspected shooters were a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, who is said to be in police custody after being critically injured.  The father was killed at the scene.

Police have so far refused to disclose any information about their ethnicity or nationality. Lanyon also said that police will not be disclosing any information as to the motive for the attack for now.

“We’re still very early in the investigation, we’re happy to provide information,” Lanyon said. “I want to give our investigators the opportunity to investigate thoroughly without speculation. We heard a lot information was coming forward. I want to make sure it’s accurate… our investigation will be thorough.”

The police chief did disclose that the 50-year-old man had a license for a firearm for approximately 10 years despite Australia’s strict gun control laws. Lanyon also said that police were aware of the 24-year-old suspected shooter, but did not have any indication that he was planning an attack.

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