STATEMENT




Following reports of what are becoming regular occurrences of racist hate vandalism in Australia, targeting most specifically Jewish-Australian candidates contending the upcoming Federal Election, the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) adds its voice of unequivocal condemnation on behalf of the greater Armenian-Australian community.

Member for Berowra Julian Leeser's posters have been sprayed more than once with swastikas and dollar signs, similarly the posters of Treasurer and Member for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg. These acts are disgraceful. Their intentions are disgraceful. The content is disgraceful. The regularity of the attacks is most disgraceful.

History has shown time and time again, that normalising racism and expressions of hate is the beginning of a recipe for disaster.

Armenian-Australians join with our friends in the Jewish-Australian and greater Australian communities to call out this vandalism for what it is: an unacceptable expression of race hate.

As a fellow community made up of descendants of genocide survivors, we feel great offence knowing the trauma such acts can cause a community. We will not stand for it. Australia should not stand for it. Not against the Jewish community, nor against any other community.

Recently, offensive anti-Turkey banners were hoisted up in Western Sydney. We condemn and reject any use of racially charged slogans being linked or associated with the important human rights cause of justice for the Armenian Genocide. We reject any attempt by certain quarters funded by a foreign government seeking to portray this human rights issue as an "ethnic dispute".

Earlier this year, the Armenian community of Los Angeles, California was victim to acts of racism, when two Armenian schools were defaced with Turkish flags - Turkey being the country responsible for the denial of the Armenian Genocide, committed by its predecessor Ottoman Empire.

We unequivocally reject all such provocations as a people who has suffered as a result of some of the worst forms of racial and religious intolerance throughout our history.