Police in Australia investigated for racist e-mail

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iSNqMufx-wtYKgb—RoBYmNOo0AD9ELLRVG0

ADELAIDE, Australia — About 100 Australian police are being investigated for circulating racist and pornographic e-mails via the internal police e-mail system, and one officer involved in the scandal has committed suicide, a top official said Thursday.

The investigation in Victoria state follows an independent citizens group report last week that police in the state capital Melbourne have targeted, taunted and beaten African teens, accusing the department of having a “culture of racism.”

Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland acknowledged at the time that some officers were racist but said they were a small minority, and in announcing the e-mail probe Thursday he noted that the material involved a variety of offensive themes, including pornographic and sexist material. The officer who committed suicide was not responsible for racist material, Overland said.

Overland refused to elaborate on the content of the e-mails, saying none of it was illegal but that all of it was offensive and in breach of department policy.

“It’s a mix of racist and pornographic and otherwise offensive material,” he told reporters. “There are varying degrees of involvement and varying degrees of seriousness.”

He would not confirm whether any of the racist material referred to Africans or Indians. Both groups have been the target of violence in Victoria state and have criticized police conduct in recent months.

The Age newspaper reported that the investigation centered on a graphic image of a non-Caucasian man being tortured. There were no other details on the image.

The months-long investigation led to two officers receiving what is called a Section 68 — notice that the commissioner has lost confidence in the officers and giving them a chance to explain why they should not be dismissed — for introducing the material into the police system.

The other officers are being questioned for further circulating the e-mails, sometimes adding inappropriate comments of their own.

“It’s extremely disappointing that people would behave in this way,” Overland said. “They’ve let us down and they’ve let themselves down and we’ll have to deal with it.”

Overland confirmed that a police officer who committed suicide earlier this week was one of two given the Section 68.

Tony Vangorp, 47, tendered his resignation Friday and returned to the police station Monday night and shot himself. Overland said Vangorp had not been responsible for any racist e-mails.

“A tragic event has happened,” Overland said. “It’s deeply, deeply regrettable and we need to learn the lessons but it doesn’t mean that I can or should avoid my responsibilities around the good order and governance of Victoria Police.”

The state police department has 13,800 employees, including police officers, public servants and protective security officers.

Overland said his goal in disciplining the officers was to uphold the department’s values and keep the confidence of the community.

“How can a community have confidence in this organization if we allow racist, sexist, pornographic, inappropriate material to circulate freely around the organization?” Overland asked. “We can’t do it.”

Australians are racist, say Australians

Racism ... youths bash a man in a train during the Cronulla riots in Australia in 2005.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25683575-421,00.html

AUSTRALIANS are in two minds about multiculturalism, a long-term survey has found.

They believe cultural diversity is good for the country but they’re worried that cultural differences will stop everyone from getting along.

An 11-year study by a collaboration of Australian universities has found 85 per cent of Australians acknowledge racial prejudice occurs in the nation and one in five has been a victim of racist verbal abuse.

The study found that 6.5 per cent of the 16,000 Australians surveyed were against multiculturalism.

Professor Kevin Dunn, from the University of Western Sydney’s school of social science, said the study revealed that the majority of Australians are pro-multiculturalism but are anxious that the diversity will not be managed well.

“Over 40 per cent of those surveyed feel that cultural differences pose a threat to societal harmony,” he said.

“So if you take that alongside the 87 per cent that are pro-multiculturalism, clearly you’ve got a third of the nation that tolerate cultural diversity but are concerned at the impact it will have on society.

“The Cronulla riots and the recent attacks on people of Indian descent are an example of this.

“The figures show that 85 per cent of Australia acknowledge there is racial prejudice in the country.”

Prof Dunn believes previous governments have done nothing to address the issue for the past decade, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma spending only part of his time dealing with race discrimination.

“For the last decade, the government hasn’t appointed a full-time Race Discrimination Commissioner,” Prof Dunn said.

“Because of the severe underfunding of the commission, they’re just unable to offer the sorts of services required.”

The survey also found that at least one in five Australians experience verbal abuse such as offensive slang names for different cultural groups, or swearing and offensive gestures, while 11 per cent feel they don’t belong or are inferior.

There have been large rallies against racism in Melbourne and Sydney

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8097526.stm

Indian students in Australia have vowed to fight back against a series of callous attacks they have blamed on racists.

Furious demonstrators have rallied in Sydney and Melbourne, where dozens of assaults have been reported in the past year.

“People got stabbed in their houses, on train stations, on the street and there were petrol bombs thrown on people’s cars,” said Gautam Gupta, the founder of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia. He accused the authorities of being “too slow” to respond to the violence.

“We have no reason to believe they are not racist attacks,” Mr Gupta told the BBC.

“Whenever they are attacking they always use the words ‘Indians, go back’,” he said.

“It would be insulting to all the good people of Australia to say the country is racist. There are racist elements and we will fight with them.”

The federation is organising self-defence classes for worried students and, in at least one case, there has been violent retaliation, where rough justice has been meted out to those suspected of targeting young Indians.

Stay in the streets! Demand your rights!

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned against vigilante action, and, while deploring the abuse of foreign students, he said it was “equally unacceptable for so-called reprisal attacks”.

Diplomatic tension

In Melbourne, home to many of the 90,000 Indians who are studying in Australia, the police will intensify patrols at known trouble-spots, including a dozen train stations.

Senior commanders have insisted the beefed-up response is driven by crime in general, and not only the muggings and beatings of international students.

Australian authorities have conceded that some of the attacks on Indian expatriates were fuelled by racial prejudice.

But there is an official belief that most are the work of opportunistic criminals preying on easy targets, who often travel alone on public transport after dark.

“I think it would break the heart of any Australian to see an Indian student who has come to this country to get a good education the subject of a violent attack,” said Julia Gillard, Australia’s Welsh-born deputy prime minister.

The identity, background and motives of alleged assailants remain sketchy. Certainly not all are white, but from a range of ethnic groups, and other foreign students have been victims, not just Indians.

While the debate rages, and the diplomatic stress between Canberra and Delhi continues to simmer, with India calling on Australia to do more to protect its expatriates, the violence shows little sign of abating.

“It is really very bad. Almost every day there is a case where an Indian is being bashed openly and aggressively,” said Raj P Dudeja, the chief editor of the Melbourne-based Indian Voice newspaper.

He initially blamed young teenagers but believes more recently a hidden wave of hostility has been perpetrated by racists.

“Some people didn’t report these matters with a fear that their names would appear in police records, which might affect their application for migration in the future,” added Mr Dudeja, who has praised the response of Victorian police and its newly appointed chief commissioner, Simon Overland.

Scars

The spate of attacks, though, has damaged Australia’s reputation and there are concerns the country’s multi-billion-dollar education business that relies, in large part, on the fees paid by foreigners could suffer as a result.

For many youngsters from overseas, however, the Australian experience is positive and enriching.

“I’ve never come across any kind of racial discrimination,” explained Ranjinee Dey, 25, from Calcutta who is studying for a Masters in organisational psychology in Melbourne.

“One of my aunts [in India] felt that as soon as I stepped out the house someone would be jumping on me and attacking me, which I thought was ridiculous,” she told the BBC.

“The retaliation attack got me a bit concerned because something like that can easily spiral into something a lot more serious. It is one violent incident leading to another,” she said.

It was a drunken assault on Gautam Gupta on a university campus in Melbourne that led to the creation of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia.

“I was almost in a depression for a year. It took me a very long time to recover and the scars still remain and as a result of that attack we started what is now the federation,” he said.

Community groups in Melbourne and Sydney have been working to soothe tensions but there are fears the situation may have reached breaking point and that Indian students will continue their noisy rallies, raising the prospect of further confrontations with those suspected of carrying out racist attacks.

“The level of frustration has gone beyond a manageable limit,” Mr Gupta said of the young Indian protesters.

“They are angry. They don’t know what else to do. How else can they get their voice heard?”

Taser death second in six months

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25628617-2702,00.html

Is the Prime Minister of Australia serious?!?!  He’s telling Indians in Australia that if the police don’t respond to their claims that they should report it to their representatives in parliament!!  Is that some cruel joke?!  This is Malcolm-Che.com, you know we don’t co-sign all that.  Oppressed minorities have to protect themselves!  Arm yourselves and portect yourselves, you can’t count on a racist government within a racist society to protect you!

PM Rudd said that violence in Australian cities is a “regrettable part” or city life?!?!  Is he serious?!  But then the condemns Indians who took steps to protect themselves?!  He is putting an equal sign between violence of the oppressor and violence of the oppressed.  That is something we’ll never do here at Malcolm-Che. 

We salute the Indian youths who are staying in the streets, protests are very important to strengthen the movement and develop solidarity.  And to the extent that racist violence continues the Indian minority should move in groups and arm themselves if necessary.  Fight racism head on, don’t count on a government that doesn’t even take the threat of racist violence seriously!

Australian PM urges calm, warns off student vigilantes

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday warned Indian students against “vigilante action” as the agitated Indian community held a second night of protests in Sydney against racial violence against them.  

Promising “hardline measures” against racial attacks, Rudd said, “it’s unacceptable for anyone to commit an act of violence against any student of any ethnicity anywhere in Australia.”

He said while violence in all Australian cities was “a regrettable part” of urban life, vigilante action was equally unwelcome.  

“I fully support hardline measures in response to any act of violence towards any student anywhere – Indian or otherwise,” he said.

“And furthermore we also need to render as completely unacceptable people taking the law into their own hands. Everyone needs just to draw some breath on this and we need to see a greater atmosphere of general calm,” he said.

Rudd’s remarks came close on the heels of acts of retaliation by the Indians following racial attacks on them.

Indian students have also formed groups to protect students from racial attacks.

On Tuesday night, over 70 Indian men gathered in Harris Park in Sydney’s west after rumours of a man being killed in an attack and assault on an Indian cleaner in Warwick Farm. Police arrested two men during the protest. One was charged with carrying a weapon, a metal pole, while the other was released without charge, a police statement said.

Indian students have organised rallies in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities, in recent weeks demanding that authorities prevent racial attacks on them.

Rudd said students should report any acts of violence against them to police and if their complaints were not followed through, they should go to their local members of parliament.

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As the world economy continues to be in crisis racism and xenophobia are on the rise.  Keep your eyes open, if it isn’t there already it’ll be coming to your neighborhood soon. 

The state police chief said, “some of the attacks are opportunistic in that they just happen to be Indian students in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  The wrong place at the wrong time?!?!  Sounds like they’re ‘blaming the victim’ to me!!  With comments like that you know the police are not serious about ending these racist attacks!!!  We at Malcolm-Che are obviously in solidarity with the Indian residents who are dealing with this racism and the total lack of response by the government.  Stay in the streets!!  Keep the protests up!!  Protect and defend yourselves BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!!!!

Clashes at Melbourne racism protest

Look at the sign: "Racism is more dangerous than Swine Flu"... So true!!

Indian students hold a placard at a protest in Melbourne while demanding that the Australian government and police do more to protect students from violence.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/06/2009613428513474.html

 The mainly Indian protesters say a spate of attacks in recent days – one of which left an Indian student with serious injuries after being stabbed with a screwdriver – are racially motivated.Protesters later rallied at key intersections and staged a sit-in protest in front of the main railway station, blocking traffic in one of the city’s busiest streets for almost 20 hours.

Police however say the incidents are both racial and part of a wider increase in opportunistic crimes.

On Sunday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Melbourne demanding greater police action over the attacks.

The protests began at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where Sravan Kuman Theerthala, 25, is in a critical condition after being stabbed with a screwdriver at a party.

‘Unsafe’

The Federation of Indian Students of Australia, which organised the rally, said the attacks on Indian students were racially motivated.

In a statement on its website it said it was calling for a peaceful protest to raise awareness, and promote racial harmony and peace.

The student body also wants the Indian government to declare Australia an unsafe destination for Indian students if the attacks continue.

Police officials say that while there may be a racist element to some attacks, Indian students are often assaulted because they travel alone late at night to part-time jobs and are known to carry valuable items such as laptop computers.

“I think some of the attacks are opportunistic in that they just happen to be Indian students in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Simon Overland, the Victorian state police chief, told reporters on Monday.

The attacks escalated into a diplomatic issue last Friday, with Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, telephoning Kevin Rudd, his Australian counterpart, to express his concern.

The Australian and Indian foreign ministers have also held talks on the matter.

Stephen Smith, the Australian foreign minister, said he had promised authorities would do everything possible to prevent the violence and prosecute the perpetrators.

“We have a particular current problem with Indian students,” Smith told Ten Network television.

“It’s an issue we’re very well aware of and we’re working very closely with the relevant state authorities as a consequence.”

More than 90,000 Indian students are studying at Australian universities and student groups say they pump billions of dollars into Australia’s education industry.

But, they say, Australian authorities are not taking the attacks seriously.

Export earner

Australia’s international student sector is the country’s third-largest export earner, behind coal and iron ore, bringing in $10bn in 2007-08.

Simon Crean, the Australian trade minister, said the government held talks with police in mid-2008 after Indian officials first raised concerns.

“It is very disturbing what has happened,” he said. “It is something we do seriously have to address and we will. I think we can get on top of it.”

At the weekend one of India’s top celebrities reportedly showed his support for the protests by rejecting an honorary doctorate from an Australian university.
 
Amitabh Bachchan, the 66-year-old Bollywood actor said in a blog post on Saturday that he decided not to accept the award from the Queensland University of Technology after consulting his readers.

“My conscience is profoundly unsettled at the moment and there seems to be a moral disjuncture between the suffering of these students and my own approbation,” Bachchan wrote in a letter to the university which he posted on his blog.

“Under the prevailing circumstances I find it in appropriate at this juncture, to accept this decoration.”

Five teenagers in Australia arrested for attacks on Indians

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/five-teenagers-in-australia-arrested-for-attacks-on-indians/468077/

Australian police on Friday arrested five teenagers in connection with the recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne, and charged one of them for attempted murder.

A 17-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder after four Indian students, including Sravan Kumar, were brutally attacked by gatecrashers at a party in Melbourne’s north on Saturday night, according to the Victorian police.

Kumar, 25, who was attacked with a screwdriver at a birthday party continued to remain critical and is still on life support.

Another 18-year-old was questioned in relation to the attack but has since been released.

Police also charged four minors in another case involving the brutal bashing on a train of a 21-year-old Indian student while he was on his way home on May nine.

The teenage boys are due to be produced before a juvenile court later on Friday and as per the rules the boys have not been identified.

They have been charged with offences including affray, intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury and robbery, the Victoria police said in a statement said.

Kumar’s close friend Srinivas Korna, who is keeping a vigil at his hospital bedside, said he was still under intensive care but has started receiving utmost attention after media outrage over the attacks.

Korna said a special doctor has been assigned for Kumar.

Indian High Commissioner Sujatha Singh visited Kumar and was also scheduled to meet two other injured students in Melbourne and Canberra each. She said that his medical bills will be completely covered despite his lapsed insurance.

Train gang bashes Indian student

http://www.watoday.com.au/national/train-gang-bashes-indian-student-20090511-azbq.html

An Indian student was bashed and robbed by a racist gang in front of passengers on a train home on Saturday, adding his name to a growing list of young Indian victims in Melbourne.

Sourabh Sharma, 21, who came to Australia a year ago to study hospitality, found just the opposite when six thugs confronted him on the train home to Werribee.

“They asked me for cigarettes. I said I had none, then they said, ‘Why the f— did you come here?’ then they were saying ‘Kiss my foot’ and started kicking me and punching me,” he said.

“I was crying out for help but nobody would help me. They punched me in the teeth and kept kicking me. I said take my watch, take my wallet, but there were five or six of them and they kept just beating me.”

He said the gang, all aged about 16, had got on at Aircraft station near Laverton and jumped off at Hoppers Crossing. Mr Sharma was left covered in blood, with a fractured cheek bone and shattered teeth. He passed out and was taken to hospital.

The attack follows a growing number of assaults on Indian students, particularly in the western suburbs.