From the Adelaide Addy:

Racial abuse is rife in state
By Michael Owen
December 31, 2006 11:02pm

MUSLIMS in South Australia are being racially abused “like never before”, a Government report has found.

The trend has prompted the Equal Opportunity Commission to launch a new project to work with the SA Muslim community, described in the commission’s latest annual report as being “under pressure”.

The issue was touched on in October in Adelaide, when Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty told a Press Club lunch that rising levels of racism and hatred towards Muslims was likely to incite terrorism.

He was hearing increasingly disturbing reports from Islamic communities about how they were being poorly treated by the wider community.

SA Equal Opportunity Commissioner Linda Matthews said in the annual report that a “small minority are behaving in an unacceptable way” towards newly arrived Muslims.

“For generations, South Australian Muslims have been an integral part of our community,” she said.

“But in the last five years, the heightened global attention on Islam has seen local Muslims singled out for unfair treatment like never before.”

Roman Catholic Church Vicar-General Monsignor David Cappo, who also heads the State Government’s Social Exclusion Unit and is a member of the executive committee of Cabinet, told The Advertiser’s Rex Jory that racism was widespread among young Adelaide people.

“They are very harsh to Asian communities. Now the Muslims are going to get it as well,” he said.