Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday condemned attacks on churches after days of race riots in Sydney, as the city's police were given tougher powers to deal with unrest.
Howard said recent incidents, in which churches were vandalized and a church hall was burned to the ground in a fire described by police as suspicious, were "particularly repugnant."
"Attacks on churches, attacks on any places of worship, are to be utterly and unconditionally condemned," he said.
Howard called for calm and said it was not the time to be looking for underlying reasons for the recent violence.
Dozens of people have been injured and arrested in racial violence since Sunday, when a mob of whites attacked people of Middle Eastern appearance at Cronulla beach in Sydney, sparking retaliatory rampages.
Response
"What we have to try to do is calm everybody down, change the law where necessary, support the police and then reflect in the weeks ahead as to what some of the fundamental reasons are," Howard said.
"Maybe there were warning signs around that have been ignored that shouldn't have been ignored, but let's not do that in the heat of current events," he said.
Howard backed new legislation giving police in the state of New South Wales new powers to deal with riots.
The state parliament passed the new legislation, which will enable police to "lock down" areas of unrest, in an emergency session yesterday after being recalled from its summer recess.
State Premier Morris Iemma said the government was determined to give police the powers they needed to quell the unrest.
"Louts and criminals have effectively declared war on our society and we are not going to let them undermine our way of life," Iemma told parliament.
Under the laws, police will be able to cordon off areas and prevent vehicles from entering them, stop and search people and seize vehicles and mobile telephones for up to seven days.
Police will also be given the power to close licensed premises and to declare alcohol-free zones. The maximum jail sentence for rioting will be increased from 10 years to 15 years.
Police said their numbers in Sydney's troubled south would be trebled to 1,500 on Sunday despite assurances by some community leaders that they had reached an agreement which ensured an end to the violence.
The Lebanese Muslim Association and government backbencher Bruce Baird, whose electorate covers the troubled area, arranged for police, community and local political leaders to attend the forum yesterday.
"All of us were concerned at the events of last weekend, all of us condemned the violence," Baird said.
Cooperation
They had reached agreement "to work together to make sure that once again this area is somewhere people can come to the beach and enjoy it without problems in the future," he said.
The president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Ahmad Kamaledine, said he had "a great belief that collectively we will be able to produce a very, very good outcome."
Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said the huge police presence promised for the weekend was not designed to keep people away from the beaches.
"I think in the last few days the spirit of Christmas rode out of this town," he said.
"And it is up to all of us, not only the police, but people of goodwill to bring the spirit of Christmas back into this city.
"Much of the calm we've seen restored to the streets is as a result not only of the policing effort but the significant contribution of people of goodwill," he said.
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