{"id":17574,"date":"2025-12-18T15:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=17574"},"modified":"2025-12-18T15:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:40:08","slug":"australian-pm-vows-to-stamp-out-hatred-as-nation-mourns-youngest-bondi-beach-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=17574","title":{"rendered":"Australian PM vows to stamp out hatred as nation mourns youngest Bondi Beach victim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>PM targets extremist preachers and hate-linked visas.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Plan to list organisations tied to hate speech.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Serious race-based vilification to become federal offence.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SYDNEY: Australia&#8217;s prime minister vowed to stamp out extremism on Thursday as the nation mourned the youngest victim of the Bondi Beach shooting, a 10-year-old girl remembered as &#8220;our little ray of sunshine&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Father-and-son gunmen are accused of firing into crowds at a beachside Jewish festival on Sunday evening, killing 15 in an onslaught authorities linked to &#8220;Daesh ideology&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised a sweeping crackdown to banish the &#8220;evil of antisemitism from our society&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge,&#8221; he told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This included new powers to target extremist preachers and to refuse or cancel visas for those who spread &#8220;hate and division&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia would develop a regime for listing organisations whose leaders engage in hate speech, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Serious vilification&#8221; based on race would become a federal offence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the prime minister spoke, mourners gathered for the funeral of 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest victim slain in the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Matilda is our little ray of sunshine,&#8221; said the rabbi leading the service, reading out a message from her school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;She is genuinely the most kind, caring and compassionate young girl, who brightened everyone&#8217;s day with her radiant smile and infectious laugh.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Black-clad mourners clutched bouquets of lilies as they filed into the funeral at Sydney&#8217;s Chevra Kadisha, a Jewish society responsible for customary burial rites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Others held balloons emblazoned with pictures of bumblebees, a reference to the young girl&#8217;s nickname &#8220;Matilda Bee&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Photos taken in the hours before the first bullets were fired showed the young girl stroking animals at a petting zoo and smiling after having her face painted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Matilda&#8217;s family \u2014 who have asked media not to publish their last name \u2014 left Ukraine to settle in Australia before the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t imagine I would lose my daughter here. It&#8217;s just a nightmare,&#8221; mother Valentyna told reporters ahead of the funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;It just stays here and here, and I can&#8217;t get it out,&#8221; she said, pointing to her head and heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her father, Michael, said they chose her name as a nod to Australia, where the beloved folk song &#8220;Waltzing Matilda&#8221; is sung as an unofficial national anthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We came here from Ukraine, and Matilda was our firstborn here in Australia,&#8221; he said earlier this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;And I thought that Matilda was the most Australian name that could ever exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;So just remember. Remember her name.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Extremist ideology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sajid Akram and his son Naveed are accused of opening fire on the Jewish Hanukkah celebration in an antisemitic attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Father Sajid, 50, was killed in a shootout with police but 24-year-old Naveed survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reportedly an unemployed bricklayer, Naveed was charged on Wednesday with 15 murders, an act of terrorism, and dozens of other serious crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Authorities believe the pair were radicalised by &#8221; Daesh ideology&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australian police are investigating whether the pair met with extremists during a visit to the Philippines weeks before the shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Philippines said on Wednesday there was no evidence that the country was being used for &#8220;terrorist training&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Questions are mounting over whether authorities could have acted earlier to foil the gunmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Naveed came to the attention of Australia&#8217;s intelligence agency in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he was not considered to be an imminent threat at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The attack has also revived allegations that Australia is dragging its feet in the fight against antisemitism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We stand at a very important moment,&#8221; government envoy for antisemitism Jillian Segal said Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Not only for our community, but for fighting antisemitism around the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia&#8217;s leaders have agreed to toughen laws that allowed Sajid Akram to own six guns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Bondi Beach attack is the deadliest mass shooting since 35 people were killed in the Port Arthur massacre of 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That shooting sparked sweeping reform of Australia&#8217;s gun laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, in recent years a steady rise has been documented in privately owned firearms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SYDNEY: Australia&#8217;s prime minister vowed to stamp out extremism on Thursday as the nation mourned the youngest victim of the Bondi Beach shooting, a 10-year-old girl remembered as &#8220;our little ray of sunshine&#8221;. Father-and-son gunmen are accused of firing into crowds at a beachside Jewish festival on Sunday evening, killing 15 in an onslaught authorities [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440","service":"facebook","timestamp":1766054441,"status":"success"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17576,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17574\/revisions\/17576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}