Horrified by pig’s head on doorstep, church demands hate crime charges
The Gold Coast Islamic community is continuing to push to have the dumping of a pig’s head and heart at the front door of the city’s largest mosque treated as a hate crime.
The Gold Coast mosque where the protest was conducted. (Image; SBS).
A 21-year-old Coast woman has been charged with wilful damage and will appear in court on 11 November.
Gold Coast Islamic Society chairman Hussin Goss branded the offence a hate crime and said news of the assault on the Coast’s Islamic community had spread internationally.
“I’ve mentioned to police and different authorities that if they don’t put this down as a hate crime, I don’t know what is,” Goss said.
“If we don’t put this down as a hate crime and have a charge for that, then it should be charged as that. This has to be a deterrent for the future.”
Goss told ABC Gold Coast that the community were not prepared to dismiss the incident and were deeply hurt after the bag containing the pig’s head and heart smothered in green paint was left on the mosque doorstep on Friday.
“We just can’t let this go, It could become more serious.,” Goss said.
“We just can’t comprehend who would do this, especially in 2022.
“It wasn’t thrown out of a car. It was actually placed, so someone put a lot of effort into it to place it there.”
The pig head found at the front door of the mosque. (Image; Supplied)
He said the targeting of the mosque had had a ripple effect that had gone “around Australia and around the world”.
“Australia is a civilised country and for this to happen in 2022, people are very disgusted,” he said.
“People feel disgusted that someone would do this to degrade our religion. It’s gone to the heart of the people, in a sense, to upset them.”
“For me personally, because I was the person who had to see it and remove and go through all the drama with the interview with police and seeing it all, it’s quite hurtful. We don’t deal with pigs on a daily basis. For me as an Aussie, it’s shocking.”
Vilification is unlawful under the Anti-discrimination Act, but Queensland does not currently have specific laws dedicated to hate crimes.
The State Government announced in May that public display of hate symbols would be banned in Queensland under new laws being developed to combat hate crimes and serious vilification.
Gold Coast police Superintendent Craig Hanlon said police had arrested the woman after she was identified in CCTV footage placing the pig’s head at the mosque.
