Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Anti-racism spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has urged the Government to reckon with the ugly reality of racism in this country, noting that 15 March is the International Day to Combat Islamophobia and anniversary of the Christchurch Mosque shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Faruqi said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Four years ago, racism killed 51 people in the Christchurch Mosque massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Christchurch shooter was a product of Australia and far right extremism continues to threaten our safety and well being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe must reckon with the R-word and acknowledge the scale of racism in this country which seeps into every day lives, policies, and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReport after report tells us that Muslims in Australia continue to experience horrific levels of racism and hate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDisturbingly, Muslim women and children bear the brunt of Islamophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRacist and Islamophobic prejudice feeds into the cruel immigration system that detains, dehumanises and deports people seeking asylum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor too long politicians have fanned the flames of racism, stood quietly on the sidelines or gaslighted people like me who dare to call it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs a start, let\u2019s mandate anti-racism training for all politicians so they are forced to confront their privilege, bias and prejudice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s ditch the name \u2018Harmony Day\u2019 for 21st March and revert to the original purpose and name of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe time to trivialise and whitewash racism is over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need proper data collection on hate crimes and racial discrimination and we need to strengthen and enforce hate speech laws.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Anti-racism spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has urged the Government to reckon with the ugly reality of racism in this country, noting that 15 March is the International Day to Combat Islamophobia and anniversary of the Christchurch Mosque shooting. Senator Faruqi said: \u2018Four years ago, racism killed 51 people in the … Continue reading “GOVERNMENT MUST RECKON WITH ISLAMOPHOBIA”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20711,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20710\/revisions\/20711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}