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The letters, claiming to be from a 400-strong Casino branch of the Ku Klux Klan, were received by residents in the Shearman Drive and Campbell Crescent areas last month.

The letters contained racist slurs and threats to bash the children of the recipients if they were seen out at night.

Detectives investigating the letters have said they have found no evidence of a Klan branch on the Northern Rivers.

Visiting Lismore on Friday, Mr Orkopoulos said the hate letters were offensive but did not represent the majority view of the Australian community.

Mr Orkopoulos encouraged anyone who received such a letter to take it, and the envelope it came in, to police for investigation.

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He said the author claimed to be a member of a racist, organised group based in Casino, however, there were doubts about the letter’s authenticity, and there was no evidence such a group even existed.

He would not name the group, but it has been widely reported that the author claimed to be from the Klu Klux Klan – a mis-spelling of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan.

Head of SCU’s Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples, Judy Atkinson, whose work focuses on violence, trauma and healing, said whoever had written the letter was a very “damaged� person.

She said the letter writer might have been hurt in their own family and was possibly operating from a place of self-hate.

“None of us can stand on the sidelines and say ‘it’s not my business’,� she said. “We all have the capacity to be the person that wrote that letter.

We have an ethical responsibility to work to understand why people behave like this. “Why would a mother slap her child in such a bad way? What’s happening to that mother?

It’s always a question we have to ask ourselves and what can we do.� Professor Atkinson said it was a very fearful time, and the letter writer was merely projecting their fear and distress onto others.

But she urged the people who received the letter not to buy into that fear and retaliate. She said the answer lay in working within our own communities to make positive changes.

“This person from Casino is obviously in dysfunction and they are projecting their fear and distress onto another group of people,� she said. “If they didn’t feel that way, they wouldn’t take on the persona of the Ku Klux Klan, which they can’t even spell. They need to go to school.�

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Arriving yesterday to attend last night’s Aboriginal Debutante Ball in Lismore, Mr Mundine said racism was a permanent feature of Australian life.

“This is very sad. We’re all human beings,” Mr Mundine said.

“Racism is still bad in this country and it’s not getting any better.”

Mr Mundine advised local families not to take the letter seriously.

“Don’t worry about it. Don’t let it stop you from living your life,” he said.

Mr Mundine said he wanted police to be thorough with their investigations into finding the person responsible for the letters.

Also speaking out against the racist letters was the organiser of last night’s debutante ball, Darryl Creighton.

“This is a step backwards for reconciliation,” Mr Creighton said.

“Unfortunately you get ding-alings who do things like this and it puts us back in the dark ages.

“But we don’t let little things like this bother us,” he said.

Police were yesterday following intelligence that the letter was linked to a Casino chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

Richmond Area Command Superintendent Bruce Lyons condemned the letter as threatening and racially offensive.

The letter follows warnings last month from former American Ku Klux Klan leader and now Christian preacher Rev Johnny Lee Clary, that the klan was active here.

Anyone with information about the letters should contact Lismore Police on 66231299 or Crime Stoppers on 1800333000.

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Recipients of the letter who spoke to The Northern Star said they were horrified by its message.

Meanwhile, police said the threats would not be tolerated.

“The material which has been distributed within the Richmond Local Area Command is both threatening and racially offensive and we have begun an investigation into the source of these documents,” Superintendent Bruce Lyons said.

Supt Lyons said the letters targeted specific households and had the potential to incite racial conflict.

He said the police were treating the matter seriously and following up intelligence about possible racist groups in the Casino area.

Supt Lyons called on the community to help police deal with the issue and not take matters into their own hands.

He said that addition police had begun patrolling the Goonellabah area.

The letter misspells the name of the organisation it claims to represent, referring to the Ku Klux Klan as the ‘Klu Klux Klan’.

Anyone with information about the letters should contact Lismore Police on 6623 1299 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Reverend Clary, the former leader turned whistleblower, who now travels the world as an evangelical Christian preacher, is giving two talks in Lismore and Casino next week.

“One of the reasons I’m coming to Casino is because the Klan is there and it is active,” Rev Clary told The Northern Star.

“I’ve been warned by the Klan in Casino not to come. They’ve passed on a message to me that I better not turn up. But that’s like a red flag to a bull,” he said.

“I’m going to come because of the bigotry there.”

It is believed that the Casino klavern (Klan group) belongs to the Imperial Klans of America, the largest in the US.

The IKA claims to have klaverns in Wentworthville, Coonabarabran and Gosford, and there is a Casino post office box address listed on the IKA’s website as one of its Australian contacts.

In 2000 a Casino Aboriginal pastor called on the group to show themselves and declare their intentions.

In March, 2000, 13 wooden crosses were burnt near the Box Ridge Aboriginal Community at Coraki.

And in April, 2001, Casino resident Colin Houston dressed up in a KKK gown and hood and, brandishing a black baton, patrolled the street outside an Aboriginal housing estate in Casino.

Richmond Valley mayor Charlie Cox said yesterday he was shocked and saddened by the new reports.

“I have no knowledge of any Ku Klux Klan activity, and I certainly wouldn’t like anyone to take their views to such extremes,” he said.

Cr Cox said the Casino Klan members should show themselves and not hide behind a post office box address.

The organiser of Rev Clary’s Northern Rivers appearances, Nick Sayers of the Potters House Christian Fellowship in Lismore, said yesterday there were definitely KKK members in Casino.

“It’s all hush, hush, very secretive, but I have been talking to people who are friends with Klan members and they are definitely operating here,” Mr Sayers said.

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