‘Interrupt, disrupt, expose’: Plan to drive MPs from Sydney’s mosques

A video mocking Immigration Minister Tony Burke for “scurrying like a rat” out of a community meeting appears to be the first salvo from a Palestine activist group that is promising to drive government and opposition MPs out of western Sydney.

Anger over Israel’s war in Gaza has left MPs in the city’s west wary of a febrile atmosphere turning confrontational, as police ramp up election security to counter record threats against politicians.

Flyers by Stand4Palestine instructing followers to confront and disrupt politicians in mosques.Credit: Facebook

Labor’s education minister and campaign spokesman Jason Clare on Sunday said a video “basically threatened Tony Burke”, who is also Labor’s home affairs minister.

“That’s not how democracy is done in Australia,” Clare said.

Burke had been expected to speak at an Islamic prayer event at Parry Park in Lakemba, in his electorate of Watson, on March 21.

However, the federal police agents escorting Burke were told that a text message had circulated instructing pro-Palestine activists to confront him at the event, and the minister chose to leave.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke holds the seat of Watson in Sydney’s west. He has been targeted by protesters while trying to meet members of his electorate at a prayer event.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

One activist posted a video, filmed outside the prayer meeting and uploaded by activist account Stand4Palestine, saying Burke had left “scurrying like a rat” without addressing the crowd.

“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,” the activist said.

A flyer instructing followers to confront politicians over Eid.Credit: Facebook

There is no police investigation into the video and no suggestion it contained a criminal threat against Burke.

“I’ve worked closely and respectfully with all my local communities for 20 years,” Burke told this masthead on Sunday.

It now appears the plan to confront the minister was just the first of an organised tactic to cut politicians off from mosques during the weekend’s Eid celebrations and the election campaign.

On Sunday, Stand4Palestine called on mosques not to host politicians who supported Israel, saying they were “complicit in genocide”.

“It’s betrayal,” the group wrote.

“If they dare to show up, interrupt them, disrupt them, expose them, record them.

“This is not disrespect. This is justice. Not welcome in our sacred spaces.”

The social media post includes images of Burke, Clare, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Liberal leader Peter Dutton, Photoshopped alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Followers of Stand4Palestine routinely denounce Labor figures, including Burke and Clare, while expressing support for independents backed by Muslim grassroots groups running in their western Sydney seats.

Burke’s seat of Watson and Clare’s seat of Blaxland are top priorities, given the large number of Muslim voters.

By Sunday evening, other accounts were bombarding Sydney mosques online.

“If you attend Eid prayers today or tomorrow and there is a politician there, don’t allow them to speak!” one Granville resident wrote, sharing information about Clare and Dutton’s plans to speak at two mosques in Sydney.

“My father … was blocked for expressing his opinion about rumours of Jason Clare being invited to Eid. And his comment was deleted. Shame,” another said.

While most people called for “peaceful” albeit disruptive protests to keep politicians out of the community, some followers described Burke and Clare as “rats”, “vermin” and “scum”.

One person said they wished to physically kick a politician like a dog, while another called for them to be gassed.

Threats to high office holders, federal MPs, dignitaries and electorate officers have grown dramatically over recent years, AFP Commissioner Reese Kershaw said last week.

There were more than 1000 threats in 2023-24, and in this financial year, it was likely there would be far more, he said.

“In the past 13 weeks, we have charged six men, in five separate incidents, for allegedly threatening parliamentarians and one man for allegedly threatening a political organisation,” Kershaw said.

Security agencies say conspiratorial, polarised thoughts took root in large swathes of the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic, and issues of great division, such as Palestine, have become flashpoints.

“The normalisation of violent protest and intimidating behaviour lowered the threshold for provocative and potentially violent acts,” ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said last month.

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