Extract from ABC News
Updated
Community consultation is the key to avoiding the
growth of radical extremism in future, a Brisbane-based expert on
homegrown terrorism says.
Dr Ashutosh Misra from Griffith
University's centre of excellence in policing and security once worked
with the Indian Government on addressing terrorism in that country.He praised the response of Queensland authorities to what he said was a growing threat facing Western democracies across the world.
But he warned recent raids would also be used as a recruitment tool by extremists.
"We will also see from time to time that these are the kinds of events which will work as a fodder for these groups to get their radicalisation program going on, getting more and more recruitment," he said.
"In India and the United States and globally, we have seen how these images of these raids and people being rounded up ... these are the kind of images which are used to recruit more and more people, alienate more and more people and use them for the cause."
Yesterday's raids by Australian Federal Police and state police foiled a plot to carry out what authorities described as a campaign of random public beheadings in Sydney and Brisbane.
While there is a need to safeguard the community and state institutions and government it is also important to ensure how you do it so as to avoid any backlash.Ashutosh Misra, Griffith University
Queensland police said yesterday's operation across southern Brisbane was linked to last week's raids centring on an Islamic bookstore in Logan.
Following the bookstore raid, two men from Logan were charged with recruiting and funding foreign fighters – one was linked to Islamic State recruitment, the other linked to the terrorist organisation Jabhat al-Nusra.
While no-one was arrested in Queensland yesterday, Premier Campbell Newman later revealed new information had come to light.
"It may now be alleged that at least one individual was contemplating onshore terrorist action," he said.
Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said the "information that has been gathered, particularly in the last week, has been very, very concerning".
Logan Mosque holding open day
Speaking today on 612 ABC Brisbane, Dr Misra said dialogue between authorities and the muslim community was now essential.
"We must keep our channels of communication open between law enforcement and the community, we must resort to evidence-based policing not just knee-jerk reactions, not instinctive policing.
Commissioner Stewart was expected to attend an open day at the Logan Mosque this afternoon at an event aimed at easing public tensions.
The Logan muslim community said it had been targeted by abuse and discrimination since Australia's terror alert level was raised last week.
Mosque spokesman Rami Antar said it was a time for tolerance.
"Rather than coming and throwing threats and doing graffitis on the side of the walls, and throwing pig heads, and swearing as they driving across so just open out doors and our hand for the wider community, especially those who have very serious concern about what's going on please come," he said.
Dr Misra said Australian authorities needed to avoid mistakes made by other nations in dealing with the homegrown terrorism threat.
"Australia should learn from others' experiences – experiences of United States, Europe, UK and India – that while there is a need to safeguard the community and state institutions and government it is also important to ensure how you do it so as to avoid any backlash in the future from the community," he said.
"How we go about the task will determine whether we are able to achieve both goals.
Meanwhile in far north Queensland, a mosque in Mareeba has been vandalised, with the word 'Evil' painted near the building's main entry.
The Mareeba Express newspaper reported that residents had expressed outrage that such an act had occurred in their town.
IT surveillance 'needs greater oversight'
"Societies which are multi-cultural in nature which are espousing civil liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and faith, these are the societies which are being targeted by these groups," Dr Misra said."We need very strong and greater safeguards against the kind of intrusion we are expecting to see in the field of IT in terms of what computers, what threat we are accessing and the phone data, the metadata which the Government is proposing to acquire.
"What we need is strong and greater resources being given to the independent office of the inspector general of intelligence and security for robust oversight of all these counter-terrorism measures that we are expecting to come in place very soon."
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