• AAP
• October 9, 2015 2:13PM
• Save
• Print

Parramatta Mosque chairman Neil El-Kadomi.

Parramatta Mosque chairman Neil El-Kadomi, speaking after Friday prayers, said Muslims who rejected Australian values should “get out”.

“I said you waited long time to come to this country. You should not abuse the privilege you are Australian, which is very important,” he said.

“Get out. We do not need scumbags in the community.”

Earlier today, the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, alongside other community and religious leaders, addressed the media over the Parramatta shooting in which 15-year-old Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar shot and killed police employee Curtis Cheng (see below).

As he arrived at the mosque, Mr El-Kadomi said Muslim youth needed to be educated, adding that Jabar was too young “to know what he was doing”.

He rejected a suggestion the mosque was a breading ground for extremism.

Mr El-Kadomi also said he was not concerned about a protest, planned for later on Friday outside the mosque, where Jabar spent time before carrying out the execution of Mr Cheng.

“We can go inside the mosque, close the door, and don’t fight each other.”

AAP

The Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, said “misguided teachings” are “not made in Australia”.

‘Stop messing with Australia’

The Muslim community has offered support to the family of Curtis Cheng, who was shot and killed in a terror attack outside a police headquarters in western Sydney a week ago.

The Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, alongside other community and religious leaders, said violent extremism was a rare but serious problem facing the entire community.

“Sadly, a very, very small number of Australians of Muslim faith have chosen this path,” Dr Mohamed said in a statement on Friday.

Mr Cheng, 58, was shot and killed as he left the Parramatta police HQ last Friday by 15-year-old Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar. His funeral will be held at 10am on October 17 at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral.

Dr Mohamed said any act of terrorism should be condemned.

Deviant interpretations of Islam imported from overseas, including “Sheik Twitter” and “Sheik Facebook” are part of the reason some young Muslims are being radicalised in Australia, according to the Grand Mufti, who spoke to reporters in Sydney’s west this morning.

Ibrahim Abu Mohammed condemned last week’s shooting but refused to call the incident an act of terror without “more information”, saying he was not an investigative body or security agency with the power to find out.

“We refuse and reject any form of terrorist activities, whether this - if it’s proven to be a terrorist act - or any other,” he said.

Dr Mohammed said radicalisation springs from many factors including personal motives, individual history, psychology state, social situation and the family context.

He called for “proper communication between the families and the community and us” as well as security agencies and police.

“Australia deserves for us to remain a cohesive society,” he said.

“I would say to whoever supported that (Parramatta shooting) to stop messing with Australia and its society. Generally speaking we refute and reject any form of terror.”

Dr Mohammed said misguided teachings were partly responsible for the toxic mix that leads to violent extremism.

“These misguided teachings are imported to us, it is not made in Australia,” he said.

“It’s Sheik Twitter and Sheik Facebook, the developments in the international arena contribute also.”

Asked about Jabar’s background, Dr Mohamed said the teen “used to live with his sister’s family and she abandoned him and went away”.

The sister is believed to have left Australia for Turkey the day before the shooting.

Australian authorities, with the help of Turkish police, are trying to track her down.

“We will commence on communications with the two families, the victim and the doer of this crime, before we determine what kind of role we can do in order or as a remedy for this painful crime, Dr Mohamed said.

- With AAP. Additional reporting: Rick Morton.

Religious leaders from the Muslim and Christian communities at the media briefing in Sydney.

‘That could have been my child’

United Muslim Women Association director Maha Abdo said the Muslim community had been “under siege” in the past week following Jabar’s actions.

“Things are happening and we need to really start engaging academics, research, understanding of the issues because we’ve been literally under siege,” she said.

Ms Abdo said parents would know all too well the feeling of despair when a child fails them and they feel they have failed their children.

“What happened last week is appalling,” she said.

“You feel like an incompetent parent.”

“Australian Muslim women are hurting because that could have been my child. Faith, whatever faith, is the backbone of society and young people need that.

“If they do not have that pure faith, that is when they fall into that trap. We do not want history to repeat itself.”

“You can only do so much as parents, but what we need to do is really inject the positive reinforcements of skilling up our parents so that we can continue to grow together and not blame parents for something that has happened,” Ms Abdo said.

- With AAP

Change in ‘them and us’ language

Father Rod Bower of Gosford Anglican Church said the collective response to last week’s shooting would “determine how we live as a community for generations to come”.

“These conversations are of ultimate importance. I come with a personal commitment to participate in a conversation but not in the narrative that has in some ways contributed to this tragedy. That is the dualistic storyline of a them and us.” He welcomed the federal government’s shift in language in relation to extremism and relations with the Muslim community, in the wake of Tony Abbott being replaced by Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.

“I am grateful for the noticeable change in language that Prime Minister Turnbull has brought to the conversation but if we are to transform the narrative it requires commitment and participation by the whole community and that includes the media,” he said.

“The language we use as a society to frame this conversation is important and it is a choice.

AAP

Earlier report: Muslim leaders to speak on raids

The Grand Mufti of Australia and other leaders from the Muslim community are due to speak about the killing of NSW police accountant Curtis Cheng and subsequent raids, which led to the arrest of four people.

Raban Alou, 18, was still in custody on Thursday after Wednesday’s raids, in which 200 officers stormed several homes in response to the shooting the 58-year-old accountant outside police headquarters in Parramatta.

He can be held for another four days after investigators applied in court to increase the length of time he can be detained.

A 16-year-old, who can’t be named, was released on Wednesday night without charge.

Both teenagers were students at Arthur Phillip High School, where radicalised 15-year-old killer Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar also attended.

Mustafa Dirani, 22, also a former student of the school, and Talal Alameddine, 22, were released earlier on Wednesday, also without charge.

A 17-year-old charged on Tuesday with assaulting police after allegedly supporting the killing in social media posts was in the same year as Jabar at Arthur Phillip High.

Some of those arrested had attended the same Parramatta mosque where Jabar spent time last Friday before the fatal shooting. At least three of the four were targeted last September in the nation’s largest counterterrorism operation.

As well as examining how Jabar came to be radicalised, police are also investigating how he ended up with the .38 calibre revolver he used to kill Mr Cheng.

The Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, is expected to speak to media on Friday morning.

AAP