A TV host has slammed Muslims for taking over a pedestrian mall to pray near one of Australia’s most sacred war memorials.
ADH TV’s Fred Pawle described the prayer event which took place near the Cenotaph to Australia’s fallen soldiers in Sydney’s Martin Place last week as a form of “colonisation”.
“If [the fallen soldiers] saw this they would wonder why they bothered fighting at all,” Pawle said.
“Call me presumptious, but I don’t think any Australian soldiers died so this significant site in the centre of Sydney and many other streets and parks around the country could resound to a call to prayer.
“Whatever virtues Islam has for its adherents, compatibility with liberal democracy is not one of them. Despite the proliferation of mosques around the West this new phenomenon of praying in public places has suddenly increased around the world.”
Pawle went on to give examples from Spain, Belgium, Naples, Times Square in New York City, and Anfield Stadium in Liverpool.
Muslim prayer groups, many wearing “Free Palestine” slogans, descended on the public plaza at the heart of Sydney multiple times in late March and early April.
Photos from the events show the top end of Martin Place full of Muslims taking up most of the pavement while praying, forcing pedestrians to walk around them.
Tarawih terakhir di tengah kota Sydney, Martin Place, Sydney Central Business District.
Keren juga nih kota yak. Diversenya berasa. pic.twitter.com/VR0MHdAuVY— You can call me Shayne. Who Shayne. (@madHink) April 8, 2024
The prayer events were held just metres from the site of the 2014 Lindt Cafe terror attack, where two innocent Australians were killed after being taken hostage by an Iranian Muslim refugee.
Muslims also erected a replica of the Kaaba, the stone building at the centre of Islam’s holiest site and mosque in Mecca, in Martin Place for Ramadan for the second year in a row.
Muslim former Labor Party MP Shaoquett Moselmane described it as “a unique and historic initiative. First of its kind anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.”
