SYDNEY: More than 40 Australian Muslim groups yesterday jointly condemned a siege at a Sydney cafe in which hostages were taken by an armed man and an Islamic flag displayed.
“We reject any attempt to take the innocent life of any human being or to instil fear and terror into their hearts,” they said in a statement.
The black flag shown at a window in the Lindt cafe was one commonly used by Islamic State (IS) militant group bearing the shahada, or profession of faith in Islam. It said: “There is no god but Allah; Mohammed (peace be upon him) is His messenger.”
The Muslim groups said the inscription “is not representative of a political statement, but reaffirms a testimony of faith that has been misappropriated by misguided individuals that represent no-one but themselves”.
“Any such despicable act only serves to play into the agendas of those who seek to destroy the goodwill of the people of Australia and to further damage and ridicule the religion of Islam and Australian Muslims throughout this country,” it added.
“Our immediate thoughts go to the hostages and their loved ones.
“We pray for their safety and hope this matter is resolved quickly and peacefully.”
Religious leaders across Australia called on their followers to unite and pray for a peaceful end to the Sydney siege.
Mosques, synagogues and churches across the country welcomed worshippers night, in what their leaders said was a show of community solidarity.
“In times of great adversity it is imperative that we remain calm, united and stand together,” Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan said.
The pre-Christmas siege of the Lindt chocolate cafe began yesterday morning and triggered a massive security lockdown in the heart of Sydney as hundreds of armed police surrounded the site.
At 4.56pm the crowd outside Martin Place drew close as two women dressed in brown Lindt aprons ran into the arms of a waiting police officer. Photos of the women clutching desperately to heavily armed police have become the standout images of the siege. They replaced the blurry footage that emerged at 9.45am showing hostages pressed against the cafe’s front window while holding a black flag. The footage was picked up by Channel 7, whose Sydney studios are diagonally opposite the Lindt cafe and whose morning programmes regularly show a live feed of Martin Place. It is likely that is why the Lindt cafe was targeted.
For several hours most passersby assumed that the police tape was due to a bomb scare, and were frustrated that they could not get to the bank nearby. Occasionally a worried face would hail a detective and whisper that a relative was in the cafe. They were directed toward a separate holding area.
Office workers were held in lockdown in neighbouring buildings until they could be escorted out by police. Some in the building above the besieged cafe slipped out using a ladder placed at the first-floor window.
By midday the crowd in Martin Place had swelled to 300, and the rightwing anti-Islamic group Australia Defence League had put out a call on Facebook for its supporters to join them at the police line. One man tried to rile up the crowd by shouting that there was no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
Nadia El Mouelhy, from Sydney, wearing a purple hijab, disagreed. “I am a moderate Muslim,” she told Guardian Australia. “If I took my headscarf off I would be just another member of the crowd. It’s just stupid. So stupid. You and I, we shouldn’t have to be here. This shouldn’t happen.”
At 3.35pm, three men including one Lindt employee ran from the cafe. Just over an hour later, the two women followed them. The rest of the hostages — the exact number is not known, but police have said it is under 30 —remained inside.
Police asked media not to reveal the identity of the man at the centre of the hostage negotiations. Footage from the Channel 7 news studios showed a middle-aged man wearing a bandana.
Police said his exact motives were not known, and that the response had been declared a counter-terrorism operation. The deputy police commissioner Catherine Burn said officers had been in contact with the man throughout the day and were using a “very, very well-tested system of negotiation”.
The police source later named the gunman as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian refugee and self-styled sheikh facing multiple charges.
Hostages reportedly called three Sydney newsrooms to relay the gunman’s demands. The Sydney shock-jock Ray Hadley claimed to have spoken to the gunman himself several times.
In the late afternoon, the #illridewithyou hashtag sprung up on social media in response to concerns from the Islamic community that the siege would promote another increase in racist attacks.
Australia’s Islamic community has registered an increase in racist or religiously motivated attacks since the police raided Sydney homes in a counter-terrorism operation in August.
As the sun went down at around 8pm, the crowd had thinned to just over 100, mostly journalists or sightseers who had stopped off in the city after seeing 10 hours of rolling news coverage.
Agencies
