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It’s true that you can’t choose your family, but there are also surely limits to how much sympathy we should be expected to extend to the families of anti-Semitic terrorists. I mean, are we really supposed to believe that not one person in the family had any suspicions when Dad and Bro went on a holiday to a known jihadi hotspot in the Philippines, not to mention assembling an arsenal of firearms and bombs? Or that two men, so viciously anti-Semitic that they were prepared to murder dozens of Jewish Australians, never once said anything about their hatreds at home? Or, indeed, ever wondered what they were doing, hanging out at Sydney’s “factory of hate”, the Al Madina Dawah Centre?
Certainly, ASIO had had at least one of them on its radar since 2019, as a member of an ISIS cell. But I guess it was all just a closed book to the people closest to them.
Sure, it’s all possible – but it also kind of stretches disbelief.
Anyone would wish to have a son like my son ... he’s a good boy – Verena Akram
So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t lose too much sleep because their murderous scion lost his bid to have their names suppressed.
Lawyers for Bondi gunman Naveed Akram have failed in a bid to have the identities of his mother, brother and sister protected by a decades-long court suppression order on safety grounds.
They told a Sydney court last month there was a risk one of the relatives may be killed if misguided vigilantes took the law into their own hands.
You mean, like the dozens of Jewish Australians their menfolk murdered?
The mother and siblings lived in “constant fear” for their safety and have endured death threats, stalking and intimidation, public defender Richard Wilson SC argued, and requested information including their identities, address and workplaces be suppressed […]
The court previously heard the family felt “somewhat under siege” in their home when media turned up outside and Akram’s mother remained “very afraid” of what would happen each time the court case generates attention.
Kind of how entirely innocent Jewish Australians have had to live for years, thanks to murderous thugs like Dad and Bro.
The court heard Akram’s mother previously participated in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald and her name has been in the public domain since shortly after the incident.
Just a little reminder of what she told the media:
Naveed Akram’s mother insisted that she did not believe her son could be involved in violence or extremist activity.
“He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t mix around with friends. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places ... he goes to work, he comes home, he goes to exercise, and that’s it. Anyone would wish to have a son like my son ... he’s a good boy,” she told the media outlet.
Except that now she’s gone from singing the praises of her murderous jihadi son to whining that her son’s and husband’s Jew-killing proclivities, for some inexplicable reason, attract unpleasant responses.
“I fear for my life and the lives of my children,” she wrote in material before the court.
Kind of how Jewish Australians feel, then.
To be clear: vigilante activity and harassment are not on. But don’t expect me to cry rivers for the families of terrorists, either.
Especially when they make clearly ludicrous demands like this:
The information sought to be suppressed was covered by an interim order but on Thursday, Local Court Judge Hugh Donnelly dismissed an application for final orders that would have lasted for 40 years […]
The request for a suppression order was opposed by several media outlets, including the ABC.
Barrister Matthew Lewis SC argued the proposed order would be ineffective, futile and not enforceable […]
Judge Donnelly considered that the proposed order would only have applied in Australia and not to social media platforms and news media outlets based overseas.
Well, damn. Because we all know Australians are incapable of using the internet.
