BY DAILY SABAH WITH AGENCIES
ANKARA NOV 12, 2022 –
Students seen at a high school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Nov. 11, 2022. (AA Photo)
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AMuslim student felt traumatized in her school in Melbourne, Australia as her teacher forced her class to watch a video insulting the Prophet Muhammad and also repeatedly said “that Muslims killed the person who drew this cartoon.”
Sara Ammar, an 11th-grade Pakistani Australian student told Anadolu Agency (AA) what she experienced in the classroom on the day as her teacher forced them to watch images insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Ammar, 16, said that when she entered her media class on Oct. 14, she thought the class would proceed as usual, but in the second hour, the course changed.
“My teacher was teaching the lesson first. Then he projected this cartoon on the screen and said, ‘This is the Prophet Muhammad,'” Ammar said.
Expressing that she was disturbed by the viewing of insulting images published in the Charlie Hebdo magazine, Ammar said that she wanted to leave the classroom, but her teacher left this request unanswered.
“(My teacher) kept saying that Muslims killed the person who drew this cartoon. He talked about it all the time. I couldn’t stay in the classroom.” Ammar said that there were several other Muslim students in her class besides herself.
Emphasizing that other students were also speechless against the teacher’s behavior, the young girl said: “The teacher was still saying that an innocent person was killed by Muslims. This was very disrespectful.”
Ammar, who wants other children not to experience a similar situation, said: “This is very traumatic, I don’t want anyone to be exposed to it.”
‘We want the teacher to be suspended’
The student’s father, Mohammed Ammar, said that his daughter, was crying when he went to pick her up from school, and said: “Her teacher forced her to watch images that insulted the Prophet Muhammad.”
Her father said that he immediately called the school, but could not reach anyone because it was closed, and then complained to the relevant departments.
Ammar said the Victorian Department of Education apologized, and that several government officials had contacted him and even visited his home.
In addition to this, Muhammed Ammar said that he had received a letter from a parliamentarian and that they were also concerned about the issue.
“I want to raise awareness in the Muslim community. We are waiting for an official apology from the school and we want the teacher to be suspended,” Ammar said.
Emphasizing that this incident was “painful” for the Muslim community, Ammar stressed that the teacher should be removed from his post in order to at least learn from this incident.
Pointing out that the other students’ families did not react to the projection of the images on the screen, Ammar said he will continue his struggle.
“We cannot accept insults to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad,” Ammar said.
Ammar thanked the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) for supporting them in this incident.
Queensland Mosque attacked, 5 locals convert
Meanwhile, further north in Queensland, a mosque was attacked with a severed pig’s head and heart painted green recently in Australia. The assailant was charged with “intentional harm to property.”
Gold Coast Mosque President Hussin Goss reacted to the attack on the place of worship, which has a congregation of thousands, as he said: “By making such an attack on our mosque on Friday, our holiest day, the message, ‘We will do what we want, we will overthrow your religion,’ is given. It shows that it is not intentional harm to property but a planned hate crime.”
Interestingly, after the Islamophobic attack on the mosque, there was an increase in the number of local people who wanted to convert to Islam and at least five people have already done so.
Goss shared the moments on his Facebook account where he explained Islam to people who wanted to become Muslims and who had come to the mosque and recited the shahada – the Muslim oath and a pillar of Islam – to convert to Islam.
Categories: Australia, Europe and Australia