Tony Burke receives video ‘threat’ after cancelling Muslim prayer event appearance

A protester has slammed Labor MP Tony Burke for ‘scurrying like a rat through the fire escape’ after he left a Muslim prayer event due to security concerns.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's corflutes are defaced and destroyed as tensions begin to boil in Watson. Picture: supplied

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke was forced to leave a Muslim prayer event in western Sydney due to security concerns after a message was sent urging people to come and protest his appearance.

WhatsApp messages were reportedly circulated ahead of the event urging people to protest Mr Burke’s appearance, to “hold them to account and show them they are not welcome”.

Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare told Sky News Agenda that after Mr Burke left, a video was posted online “that basically threatened Tony Burke and said, come back here without the police”.

The video, shared to Facebook after the event on March 21, shows a man associated with a pro-Palestine protest group declaring Mr Burke was “not welcome in our community”.

Tony Burke was forced to leave an event in western Sydney due to security concerns. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The man, who is wearing a keffiyeh in the clip, said he had gone to Parry Park in Lakemba, in western Sydney, for Taraweeh prayers – special night prayers during the month of Ramadan – and been told Mr Burke, along with state MP Jihad Dib, would be attending to speak about the upcoming election.

“We sat there waiting to see what they would say, but lo and behold, they were nowhere to be seen – even though I’d seen them earlier in an office in the same building,” he said.

“Now we came to know, after speaking to other people, that after Tony Burke spoke to the police who were with him, escorting him, because he doesn’t feel safe coming to Taraweeh, that he felt threatened by the vibe … and he left.

“He went scurrying like a rat through the fire escape to be seen by nobody and to escape without addressing the crowd within his own electorate.”

The man went on to talk about Labor’s call to continue supplying weapons to Israel and the government’s decision to cancel the visa of Khaled Beydoun, a US academic who entered Australia on a visitor visa and spoke at an October 7 rally in western Sydney last year.

At the rally, Mr Beydoun told the crowd October 7 marked a day of “considerable celebration” for the pro-Palestinian movement.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's corflutes have been defaced and destroyed as tensions begin to boil in Watson. Picture: supplied

“And yeah, he has the audacity to come to speak to our community here in Lakemba, and then get scared by our presence, peacefully praying Taraweeh, and go scurrying out the back exit,” the man said of Mr Burke.

“So Tony Burke, I want you to know that you are not welcome within our community and to every single politician who is silent or complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Don’t you dare show your faces in front of us, because you won’t be made to feel comfortable within our community.

“And this goes for Jihad (Dib) as well, and for any politician and any journalist who thinks that they can cover up for genocide, then come to speak to us.”

The Labor spokesman said Australia was lucky to have a culture where members of the public could interact with leaders freely, but that recent behaviour was “shouldn’t be the way elections happen”.

“The nature of Australia, if you’re a politician or a contender, is you stand there,” he said.

“People will come up to you. If they like you, they’ll have a chat. If they don’t, they’ll mumble something I can’t repeat on Sky News, or they’ll cross the road just to avoid talking to you.

“But you don’t get the sort of stuff that we’ve seen overseas.”