E/CN.4/2002/24/Add.1
page 45
95.
The Jewish organization representatives also expressed concern about racist propaganda
disseminated on the Internet by sites in Australia. A complaint was lodged in 1996 by the
Executive Council of Australian Jewry with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission against the activities of the Adelaide Institute and its leader, Frederick Toben, who
disseminate the most insidious anti-Semitic propaganda. Despite the Commission’s order to the
Adelaide Institute to cease its anti-Semitic propaganda and to apologize to the complainant, this
organization is continuing its activities and the Council has had to take the matter to the
High Court in order to secure enforcement of the Commission’s decision. The Court is expected
to issue a decision on this case in the course of 2002.
2. Anti-Arab racism and discrimination
96.
The situation of Australians of Arab origin was described to the Special Rapporteur by
representatives of the Australian Arabic Council, whose President, Mr. Roland Jabbour, he met
in Melbourne. The community comprises about 1 million members and is diverse in nature;
most of its members originate from Lebanon, but there are also members from Egypt, Palestine,
Iraq and north Africa. Most of them live in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria.
Although Arabs are fairly well integrated within Australian society (several political leaders and
prominent businessmen are of Arab origin), they are worried about the persistence of stereotypes
concerning them which sometimes lead to racist acts and discriminatory treatment, and notably
to anti-Arab discourse combined with anti-Muslim discourse in the media:
“Mainstream Australia’s recognition of and response to Arabic communities
remains largely dependent upon generalized and stereotypical representations of
Middle Eastern cultural practices, dress, cuisine and so on. Whilst Arabic culture is in
this way appropriated within orientalized, rustic and romanticized images of the Arabic
world made palatable to a mainstream Australian audience, such images fail to
adequately convey the individual and collective experiences and aspirations of Arabic
communities long established in Australia.
“Such images work to homogenize Arabic culture, whereby class, gender,
religious, cultural, social and political differences are wholly subsumed within the
generic identification of the ‘Arab’ per se.
“The other side to stereotypical representation is that Arabic communities are
often equally eschewed through the kaleidoscope of perceived threat, Arab irrationality,
anxieties about their mob mentality and their propensity for violence. A recent example
of this is the way that the increase of violent crimes in Sydney was linked to the
proliferation of Lebanese and Asian ‘ethnic gangs’ using the argument that violence is an
accepted part of everyday life in their countries of origin.”
97.
The Council drew particular attention to the tendency for a certain sector of the
Australian press to assimilate Arabs and Muslims and terrorism, and expressed the fear that
“until multiculturalism in Australia further develops the sort of framework in which diversified,
viable and contemporary representations of the Arabic community can be more fully articulated