On Thursday, two members of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) found the checkered headscarves used during the exercise were not necessary and would have been recognised by members of the public as keffiyehs, used by Palestinian and Arab communities.
During the exercise, the pretend offenders pointed their index fingers in the air.
The use of the headscarves had the capacity to encourage members of the public to believe that “Palestinians and/or Arabs were to be feared, despised, hated, and/or held in serious contempt as possibly or probably being terrorists“, especially given that it was NSW Police who used them, NCAT found.
Is a headscarf really likely to have that effect?
One of the officers was wearing a skeleton face mask. Do we expect Halloween celebrations to be subdued this year as people shy away in fear from skeleton images after this police exercise?
Unlikely.
But wait, go back and have another look at the screen grab image from the Sydney Morning Herald….
What’s the news item 2 down from the one about the gelding of the police?
Oh, just an Islamist stabbing a passerby. Nothing to see here.
To be balanced, the alleged attacker wasn’t Arabic or from Palestine, he was from Pakistan.
He knew enough Arabic to shout it at random strangers in the street in the months preceding the attack though (note to police; this is what might be called a “lead indicator“. You’re welcome):
And that Parramatta shooting he was so inspired by, what was that all about, who committed that act of terrorism?
A Kurdish Iranian. Let’s keep that balance; neither Kurdish or Persian Iranians are classed as Arabic.
Neither was the perpetrator of the Lindt Café shooting Arabic.
He didn’t have a skeleton face mask either.
These mentally-ill religiously evil idiots do have one common factor though, don’t they? One that Arabs and Palestinians also share. Perhaps it’s asking too much of Australian police to really analyse the cultural wardrobe distinctions between various ethnic groups in the Islamic diaspora when planning a terrorism response training exercise.
After all, it’s not the hurt feelings of those who share the religion of the perpetrators they are training to protect, but the lives of those targeted by the terrorists.
So, precisely how many people actually complained about this police exercise designed to keep us all safe?
Oh, just the one.
The racial vilification complaint was made by Sam Ekermawi, who identified himself as an Australian ethnic Muslim of a Palestinian national origin.
Is he a sensitive soul who is easily offended or is he perhaps trying to modify the definitions of what can or can’t be said or worn in public in a (previously) free country?
Well, he does have “previous” (in the police vernacular) against which we can judge this complaint:
He previously filed a racial vilification complaint against the Today show following comments from Sonia Kruger that she would like to see the immigration of Muslims to Australia “stopped now”. That complaint was dismissed in February.
Bill’s Opinion
This is surely a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
The police governing body, NCAT, has made the conscious decision to sympathise and prioritise the feelings of one man from a protected class over the operational duties of the police.
Someone might want to point out to the Australian police that they have a live hostage emergency incident to deal with; Sam Ekermaw has captured several national institutions and is forcing them to comply with his religious demands on the basis that the general public shouldn’t be afraid of people wearing keffiyehs.
Sure:
