GIVING REFUGE TO TERRORISTS
THE terrorist attack on Friday that killed Melbourne restaurateur Sisto Malaspina was our fifth by Muslim refugees. So why are we running a refugee program that has so far killed five Australians?
In fact, there was likely a sixth deadly Islamist attack by a refugee, but it cannot be mentioned while the case is before the courts.
So Malaspina, co-owner of the iconic Pellegrini’s, wasn’t murdered just by 30-year-old Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, whose family came here from Somalia.
He was also killed by the refusal of so many politicians, police, judges and journalists to tell the truth about a refugee program that puts us in danger. They’d rather lie or stay silent than seem racist.
Some are already excusing Ali, saying he was just mentally unwell when he tried to blow up his car with gas cylinders in busy Bourke St and then stabbed three people until police shot him dead.
But that won’t wash. Few people with mental illness try to take out shoppers with a car bomb.
The difference with Muslims is that some believe their holiest texts suggest a script — that murdering unbelievers gets them to Paradise.
When the Islamic State in 2014 ordered Muslims around the world to kill unbelievers, its statement quoted scripture at least 25 times in support.
Those quotations included this, from the Koran: “Kill the polytheists wherever you find them.”
Ali responded. He tried to join IS in Syria but his passport was cancelled in 2015 and he was monitored by Victoria Police as one of 300 potential threats.
Other relevant facts about his background have been suppressed by a court order.
Nor was Ali the only Muslim refugee here to feel called upon to kill for his faith.
Last year, another Somali-born refugee, Yacqub Khayre, murdered a worker at serviced apartments in Brighton, held a woman hostage and shot three police after telling Channel 7: “This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda.”
In 2015, Farhad Jabar, an Iranian refugee, killed police accountant Curtis Cheng while shouting “Allah is the greatest”.
In 2014, Man Monis, an Iranian refugee, staged the deadly Lindt Cafe siege while professing support for IS. Two hostages died.
Also in 2014, Numan Haider, an Afghan refugee and IS recruit, stabbed two police in Melbourne.
Even this does not tell the full story of the threat our politicians imported through our refugee program that took in badly educated people from Third World and tribal war zones, mostly Muslim — people who’d struggle to fit in.
True, most refugees are actually peaceful. Some have succeeded in inspiring ways. Many are grateful for our help.
But then there was Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan refugee, who became a recruiter and fighter for IS.
Saney Edow Aweys, another Somalian refugee, plotted to attack the Holsworthy Army base.
In fact, about half of the Islamists jailed for terrorism are from our Muslim Lebanese community, which grew fast after the Fraser government accepted thousands of people fleeing the Lebanese civil war.
Nor are we terrorised only by refugees who are terrorists.
In Victoria, Sudanese Australians — almost all from refugee families — are 57 times more likely to commit an aggravated burglary and 33 times more likely to riot, according to the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency.
The statistics don’t lie. But those in charge of our safety have been, say, economical with the truth.
A decade ago, then Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon told an astonishing untruth about Sudanese refugees: “What we’re actually seeing is that they’re not, in a sense, represented more than the proportion of them in the population.”
Last year, ASIO boss Duncan Lewis said something equally misleading in rebuking One Nation leader Pauline Hanson: “I have absolutely no evidence to suggest there is a connection between refugees and terrorism.”
In 2009, Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd savaged Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey for correctly warning that a terrorist could hide among the many genuine asylum seekers: “I think these are deeply divisive, disgusting remarks and they do not belong in any mainstream political party.”
Under pressure, then Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull repeated a sweet falsehood: “I reject any person, any statement, which suggests that asylum seekers are, or are likely to be, terrorists.”
Enough.
No one should want the many decent refugees here to feel unwelcome, but nor should any Australians die because we were too weak to tell the truth — and act upon it.