Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday promised a crackdown on hate speech in the wake of an attack on a Jewish holiday event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, as the youngest of 15 victims was laid to rest.
Yellow toy bees topped the coffin of 10-year-old Matilda, who was remembered as a “ray of sunshine” who loved animals and dancing.
Matilda’s middle name was Bee, which inspired attendees to wear bee stickers, and bring bee-themed toys and balloons, while some mourners wore yellow. Matilda’s family has asked the media not to use their surname.
Photo: AP
“The tragic, so totally cruel, unfathomable murder of young Matilda is something to all of us as if our own daughter was taken from us,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman said.
“Matilda grew up like a child would, loving what children love. She loved the outdoors, animals. She went to school, she had friends, everybody loved her,” he said.
The alleged father-and-son gunmen on Sunday opened fire as hundreds of people celebrated Hanukkah on Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. The attack, which shocked the nation and led to fears over rising anti-Semitism, appears to have been inspired by the Islamic State, authorities said.
The line outside the hall where Matilda’s funeral was held in Sydney’s eastern suburbs snaked down the street. Many mourners who could not get in watched the service on a screen outside the building.
Some were angry at the government, saying it had not done enough to combat a rise in anti-Semitism since the start of the war in Gaza.
“It’s like your heart’s been ripped out. It’s terrible ... no one wants this,” Jae Glover, 25, said, as he handed out bee stickers. “It’s a feeling, it could have been avoided. Anti-Semitism has now been brewing in Australia for over two years.”
As Matilda’s small white coffin was carried to a hearse at the end of the funeral, people crowded around to say their final goodbyes.
“As the coffin was driving away, I was just whispering: ‘I’m so sorry, my baby. I’m so sorry, my baby,’ because I have five babies. We failed this baby,” Chana Friedman, 37, said.
Elena Marguleva said the service was “heartbreaking and devastating,” and that she had not been eating or sleeping since the attack. “I can’t come to terms with how this could possibly happen.”
Albanese said the government would seek to introduce legislation that makes it easier to charge people promoting hate speech and violence.
Penalties would be increased, canceling or refusing visas would be made easier, and a regime for targeting organizations whose leaders engage in hate speech would be developed, he said.
“Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge much more,” Albanese told a news conference announcing the reforms.
Albanese’s government has said it has consistently denounced anti-Semitism over the past two years.
It passed legislation to criminalize hate speech and in August it expelled the Iranian ambassador after accusing Tehran of directing two anti-Semitic arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.
A 19-year-old Sydney man was charged and was yesterday to face court after allegedly threatening violence toward a Jewish person on a flight from Bali to Sydney on Wednesday.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS