Sapere aude

he/him | socialist | Social worker | Unionist

Views expressed are my own. Retweeting is not endorsement.

[Australian National Imams Council @ImamsCouncil]

ANIC Condemns White-Supremacist Hate Crime Against Victorian Imam and His Wife

The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) condemns in the strongest possible terms the vicious and religiously motivated assault on an Imam and his wife on the evening of Saturday, 10th January 2026. This cowardly attack is a disturbing reminder of the escalating danger facing visibly Muslim Australians.

At approximately 7:30pm on the South Gippsland Highway toward Dandenong, the Imam and his wife were targeted after the assailants identified them as Muslim, triggering an outpouring of anti-Muslim hatred, racial abuse and violence. The attackers boxed in their vehicle, hurled objects at their car, drove dangerously to intimidate them, then exited their vehicle to assault the Imam and threaten his wife with stabbing. The Imam was punched in the face, and his vehicle was damaged while bystanders intervened to stop further harm.

We believe Victoria Police are treating the incident as a hate crime. The offenders, described as men of Anglo white appearance with distinctive tattoos, exhibited behaviour and language consistent with white-supremacist and extremist hate ideology, a pattern increasingly seen in Islamophobic attacks across Australia.

The psychological trauma suffered by the victims is severe. No family in Australia should fear being attacked simply for their faith, appearance, or identity.

This attack comes despite Victoria formally recognising 15th March as the United Nations International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Yet research by the Scanlon Foundation continues to show that anti-Muslim hatred is the most prevalent form of religious discrimination in Australia, underscoring that symbolic recognition must be matched with real enforcement, accountability and media responsibility.

ANIC also warns that political rhetoric and irresponsible media commentary are actively fuelling this violence, particularly the dangerous false equivalence being drawn between peaceful pro-Palestinian advocacy and the Bondi terror attacks. This framing has contributed directly to a surge in Islamophobic abuse, threats and physical assaults, both online and in our streets.

ANIC’s Action Against Islamophobia (AAI) initiative is supporting the victims and monitoring this case closely, along with Board of Imams Victoria’s Countering Islamophobia Project.

We call for urgent identification, arrest and prosecution of those responsible, and for stronger national action to confront Islamophobia, far-right extremism and hate-fuelled violence in Australia.

All Australians deserve to feel safe going about their daily lives without fear of being abused, threatened or attacked.

👉 If you experience or witness Islamophobia, please report it. Reporting incidents creates opportunities for change, support and advocacy.
Report Incidents: https://t.co/SVcGfrFs8r

🌐 DOWNLOAD STATEMENT: https://t.co/jQVHjuA3lo

[Judith Orr @juditheo]

I've written this obituary to pay tribute to the amazing campaigner for abortion rights, Diane Munday, who has died at 94
Diane was pivotal to the campaign that won the 1967 Abortion Act, but she always said we still had to fight for more, and she never gave up.

[Charlie Herbert @Charlie533080]

Arrested in November 2024, nine months before the proscription of Palestine Action, for what effectively was just political opposition to this government’s support of Netanyahu’s war crimes. History will judge them as just. But it’ll be less kind on Starmer and his acolytes.

[evelyn araluen @evelynaraluen]

That’s how we do it

[Sapere aude @TomThelonius]

@TuttReal @jayvee4812981 Could you? Thanks

[Sapere aude @TomThelonius]

@TuttReal Agree - very important essays.

[Sapere aude @TomThelonius]

@HackneySwp Could you record this?

[Dr Liz Allen @DrDemography]

Hate incidents toward Muslim women up ~200% since Bondi massacre https://t.co/hbqJFxlCHy

[KNEECAP @KNEECAPCEOL]

Having murdered EVERY journalist in Gaza, and many of their families.

Having banned ANY international journalist from entering.

Having destroyed almost every structure in Gaza and even laughing as they blew up water treatment facilities and cancer wards.

Israel is now BANNING all aid agencies from operating there from tomorrow.

The last thread of charitable aid removed.

An evil beyond humanity.

Take ACTION
Free PALESTINE

[Alex Callinicos @alexcallinicos.bsky.social @alex_callinicos]

This seems to get what to think about Chomsky and Epstein more or less right.

[Marcello Musto @MarMusto]

In 1880 Marx co-wrote the first electoral program of French socialists. He argued that workers should fight any kind of discrimination and end women’s subaltern position: “The emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race".
The program clearly spelled out 2 key points: there should be “legal prohibition of bosses employing foreign workers at a wage less than that of French workers” and “equal pay for equal work, for workers of both sexes". Communism is this: an injury to one is an injury to all.

[Judith T Soon everyone will have been against this @JuAvrilT]

Yesterday Michelle, representing Jews against the Occupation ‘48, delivered this statement to the press conference at NSW Parliament announcing our participation in the Constitutional Challenge to Minns’ draconian anti protest laws.

[Marcus Strom @strom_m]

An Arab-Australian friend had to console her son randomly called an “Islamic dog” yesterday. The boy verbally retorted and was told ‘whatever, I bet you’re happy with what happened’

Yes, we must put our arms around Jewish Australians but also support Arab and Muslim Australians

[Nick Riemer @NickRiemer1]

Predictably, Minns wants to use the monstrous crimes at Bondi to further restrict peaceful protest. What a great idea: respond to hate by stifling an anti-racist protest movement that also calls out his own complicity with genocide. Dangerous and counterproductive in the extreme.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

More than 50 MPs and Peers have joined me in urging David Lammy to immediately meet with the lawyers of those on hunger strike.

The government needs to wake up, take responsibility, and show some humanity before it is too late.

[Solidarity @soli_aus]

The efforts of Zionists like Jillian Segal to conflate Jewish identity with support for Israel encourage antisemitism. They promote the lie that all Jewish people support a state that is responsible for genocide.

https://t.co/ws17lYGTuW

[Novara Media @novaramedia]

A Palestine Action-linked hunger striker begged prison staff to call her an ambulance as she suffered worsening chest pains – but was ignored and left alone for hours on her cell floor, her friends and family have said.

Qesser Zuhrah, who has not eaten for 42 days, is among eight people refusing food as they await trial for alleged break-ins aimed at disrupting Britain’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Lawyers representing the hunger strikers wrote to justice secretary David Lammy last week to warn that their clients may die if he does not negotiate with them.

Zuhrah buzzed from her cell last week at HMP Bronzefield to ask for a nurse after she began to feel chest pain that spread to her neck and shoulder, Middle East Eye reported on Sunday.
“She lay down on the floor and couldn’t get up,” said Niamh Grant, a friend of Zuhrah’s who spoke to her on the phone.

“As she continued to be ignored, she then started to beg for an ambulance to come because she knew that something was happening,” added Ella Moulsdale, Zuhrah’s next of kin.

A prison officer told Zuhrah to wait for a nurse, who arrived at least two hours after her chest pains started. The nurse took her vitals and gave her an electrocardiogram test. She said she would be back in 10 minutes with the test results but Zuhrah was then left alone for hours.
She later buzzed prison medical staff and said, “Can you ring an ambulance? I’m scared,” but they hung up on her.

“This is how people die in their cells,” Grant said. “She could barely get up to call me, and all I could do was try to call for the nurse for her, and then get back to listening to her cry in pain and struggle to breathe."

The Ministry of Justice and HMP Bronzefield said they could not comment on individual cases. There have been protests supporting the hunger strikers across the UK, including rallies at several BBC offices calling for the corporation to cover the story.

[Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana]

I’m not leaving until HMP Bronzefield accept an ambulance to transfer hunger striker Qesser Zuhrah to hospital for urgent medical care that she desperately needs.

[Alex Callinicos @alexcallinicos.bsky.social @alex_callinicos]

https://t.co/ysqXs3aB7S

[Marcello Musto @MarMusto]

1853: a spy visited Marx's house. “He lives in the worst part of London. There is not a clean piece of furniture in the whole place. All is broken and torn. Everywhere reigns the greatest disorder. Chairs have only three legs; it is dangerous to sit. He lives the life of a gypsy”.
“None of this embarrasses Marx or his wife. You are received in the friendliest of fashions. Pipes, tobacco and whatever else there might happen to be are offered to you most cordially. Intellectually spirited and agreeable conversation makes amends for the domestic deficiencies”.