Rising Islamophobia Goes Unchecked, Asserts Egyptian Mother from Bankstown Kmart Attack

The footage of Kelly Farrugia dramatically marching down an aisle in Bankstown Kmart, before launching into a hate-filled tirade at around 3.45 pm on Friday 20 December 2024 went viral just before Christmas.

The Egyptian mother whom the white Australian woman had chosen to direct her anger towards appears to have been targeted, as she was wearing a T-shirt displaying solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza, and more specifically, on the back of the top was emblazoned the now controversial phrase “From the River to the Sea”.

The footage further shows an outraged Farrugia waving her finger at Mariam, as she hovers over her and screams directly into her face, “Are you proud of wearing ‘From the River to the Sea?’”

The Australian woman then waves her diamond ring adorned right hand in the Egyptian mother’s face, as she roars ferociously, “Get fucked, Allah. Every fucking day. Fuck off.”

Overcome with fear for her daughter’s safety, Mariam thought to capture this last part of the incident on her phone camera. But as Farrugia left the scene, this was hardly the end of her ordeal, as calling for NSW police assistance became a further trial to bear.

Indeed, it wasn’t until the posted footage of the incident was rapidly circulating on social media that Mariam first heard from the NSW police more than 24 hours after the fact.

A bias in approach

The Islamophobia Register Australia told SBS last month that since October 2023, there has been a 530 percent rise in the number of Islamophobic incidents occurring in the community and then being reported.

But the fact is the increase in Islamophobic incidents, like that suffered by Mariam at Bankstown Kmart, aren’t being properly reported in the media or addressed by politicians, whilst ongoing antisemitic incidents are, and this suggests that there is a bias in approach to rising hate crimes.

This unbalanced approach was further revealed when PM Anthony Albanese appointed Jillian Segal to special envoy on antisemitism in early July 2024 to tackle rising prejudice against Jewish people, and the top minister said he’d too be appointing a special envoy on Islamophobia.

The prime minister, however, then waited 12 more weeks to appoint Aftab Malik as special envoy on Islamophobia. And this delay spoke volumes to the community regardless of whether it was meant to.

From the river to the sea

The fact that Farrugia screamed at Mariam specifically in respect of the phrase “From the River to the Sea”, as the Australian government and mainstream media, along with their counterparts across the western world, have been attempting to prohibit and criminalise this chant, which is popular amongst the pro-Palestine movement, claiming it’s somehow antisemitic.

However, the political party that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu belongs to, the Likud Party, has always included the statement “Between the Sea and the Jordan, There Will Only be Israeli Sovereignty” as part of its party platform.

Netanyahu currently has an international warrant issued against his name for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to Mariam about the fear she felt when she was set upon by Kelly Farrugia, who is now awaiting trial on a number of charges, along with the fact that the NSW police failed her following the incident and the hope that the pro-Palestinian movement holds for the future.

Mariam, the footage of Kelly Farrugia approaching and threatening you and your daughter in Bankstown Kmart right before Christmas went viral.

As the Australian woman makes her way down the aisle towards you in the footage, she appears quite intimidating, and she starts screaming abuse right in your face.

So, can you give us a clearer picture of how this woman came to be marching down the aisle in the department store towards you in this manner?

About a minute and a half before the video was taken, I was in one of the aisles with my daughter in the bathroom section, and we noticed that boxes were being thrown in our direction.

But we couldn’t see where these boxes were coming from. And we couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then within 30 seconds, the woman appeared in the aisle, standing behind me. She brought her arms around me, so my body was blocked between her and the shelves. And then she started pulling boxes onto me.

I don’t remember her touching me. But I was trapped in between her and the shelves.

She then made her way into the main aisle and walked away for about 10 to 15 metres, before she started looking back at me making threatening gestures.

One of them, that I remember vividly, was her motioning to slowly slit my throat. I just stayed still looking at her. Then she started walking towards me, which was when I took my phone out and started recording.

I felt terrified. I feared for my daughter’s safety so much. The only thing I thought about was that whatever is going to happen next needs to be recorded.

So, the rest of the incident is what happened in the video.

After the incident, you called the NSW police for assistance but there was a significant delay. So, what happened in relation to the police?

Security took about 8 minutes to arrive on the scene, and I called the police about 2 minutes later, so within 10 minutes of the incident, I was on the phone.

Security told me that I should call the police because they’d be much more prompt than if they called them.

I called Bankstown police station and there was no answer. I then called triple 0 and was transferred to what I believe was the local station. They took all my details and the details of the incident, and I told them where I was.

I believe they got in contact with security. But security didn’t tell me anymore.

Before I hung up on the police, I asked how long they would be. They said they’d be sending the next car down and that shouldn’t be too long. So, I waited.

My daughter had an appointment. After waiting for a while, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the appointment and she did.

So, I took her and then went back and checked with the store manager, who said the police still hadn’t come. And then he said, “I’m sorry, but they may not even come today.”

Within two and a half to three hours after the incident, I left and went home. I hadn’t heard from the police at all. I told friends and family about what had happened.

Then at 3 o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t heard from the police. I was wondering what went on. And then I posted the footage of the incident online.

By the morning, the community was aware of the incident. People got in touch to ask if the police called, and I told them they hadn’t.

Then I made a decision with the rest of the community to protest this delay by the police at Bankstown police station on the Sunday morning.

This protest came to the attention of the police at around 5 pm on the Saturday. A commander told me the next day that he had been seen the video at that time. And that was when he got everyone on duty to chase the incident up.

Also, community put up some call-out posts to attend Bankstown police station on the Sunday morning. We know that because at 10 pm, police showed up at the house of one of these people to tell her to take down the posts, in order to calm the community down.

They said they didn’t want the community showing up at the Bankstown police station because they’re afraid of us rioting and vandalising the building.

I had a talk to the police about that because when they apologised on Sunday, when I attended, I said, “Look, even when the officers said, ‘Take down the post,’ they immediately said it was because they didn’t want us to damage the building or to be rioting.”

I said, “That is in itself racist. And if you step outside and look at the calibre of people who are grieving and yet, peacefully protesting, you would understand what I am trying to say here, and why the community is really enraged by the behaviour and attitude of law enforcement towards the community.”

So, when did you personally first hear from the police? 

At around 5 o’clock on the Saturday after police started to call. By that stage, my daughter was starting to show significant signs of distress. And we had already made the decision to go to Bankstown police station at 9 am the following morning.

So, when the police started contacting me, I told them I was attending to my daughter. I was going to take her for a walk and to dinner and then maybe see some family. I told them I would be coming in the next morning.

But the police said they wanted me to go to the station that day. I told them that there would be a chance later on, but most likely, we would be going to the station the next morning.

They said they’d call back again. They called and I missed the call. But when I called back, I had the same issue as before. You never get anybody answering the phone at Bankstown police station.

Yesterday, I was filling out some details and I called them up, to get some more details of the case, and no one picked up. Two calls, you wait for three minutes, and no one picks up.

I addressed that with the inspector when he was taking my statement. He said they are so under-resourced, and their system needs to be updated. And he asked me to put in a complaint.

I said, “That is not expected of us. You’re the police. When we call you, we need you to protect us when our safety is jeopardised.”

He said, “Yeah, but Bankstown police station rents two floors in the building and the owner won’t let us update the phone lines.”

I said, “That is not our problem at all.”

So, you can see that the community is not being given enough funding for protection. That in itself is an issue. And the fact that officers are asking us to put in complaints because they are under resourced is absolutely ridiculous.

The next morning, I attended Bankstown police station. We had a rally out the front beforehand. And the police did apologise when we went in. They explained that they had to prioritise, and the issue was with how the complaint was channelled from triple 0.

The commander said he was going to get the recording of the call and find out why it was not prioritised. They said it was a systemic issue. They blamed it on having to prioritise and being understaffed.

So, you partook in rally in front of Bankstown police station on Sunday 22 December, prior to your entering the building to provide police with a statement.

When you spoke before the early morning rally, you made the point that the incident you suffered was not the only such incident of late, but rather “it was just well documented”.

Can you talk about what’s occurring in regard to incidents like the one you experienced? And why do you consider we aren’t usually hearing about them?

These incidents are happening all the time. It’s happened to me and my daughter before. It happens when you get in any kind of pro-Palestinian environment. We were attacked in Wollongong at one of the rallies.

Attacks happen quite often at the Sydney rally at Hyde Park.

There is definitely an issue of underreporting it. A lot of people don’t speak about it. A lot of people don’t report it, and I believe that the community at large has lost trust in the ability of law enforcement to attend to their needs and consider their safety a priority.

This is a sentiment that is widely circulated in the community. So, people don’t report as much. But also, when it is reported, it’s not taken seriously and it is not investigated appropriately, especially when you consider other incidents that we hear about.

These are two main reasons as to why you don’t hear about it. The other thing is that even if it is reported, it doesn’t get the media attention that other incidents do get.

The Islamophobia Register mentioned that anti-Muslim incidents and hate crimes have increased by 530 percent, since October 7th and the beginning of the pro-Palestine movement.

You further suggested that the racism that you and others involved in the pro-Palestinian movement have recently experienced in the community at the micro-level is actually being propagated from the “top down”.

Can you talk about how this works?

Clearly, there is an agenda. The government and many politicians have chosen one side over the other.

For a lot of the people in public who are uninformed politically, what politicians say in the mainstream media informs the way they understand the world. It’s informed by politicians and the mainstream media.

So, when Albanese says “From the River to the Sea” is a violent slogan, people listen to that.

Then when I say it, or wear it on my shirt, as I was that day in the Kmart, it automatically makes other members of the public, who aren’t that informed, consider that I am being violent, because the prime minister said this.

These things that are being said are allowing this violence to occur.

We know that many politicians have chosen Israel’s side. The former secretary of foreign affairs Dennis Richardson said that statements of violence against Israel can very easily flow into actions of violence against communities in our own country.

That in itself allows for the violence, like the incident I experienced, to happen, because their actions, statements and comments enable and justify the violence.

They speak a lot about social cohesion and neutrality, but then Chris Minns, for example, lights up the Opera House with the Israeli flag.

So, automatically, for a lot of the public, the government has chosen a side, and a lot of people think that everybody needs to remain on that side if they’re going to remain a true Australian.

Even in terms of education – I’m a teacher myself – and when Jason Clare, the education minister, is meant to represent all of us, or at least remain neutral like he wants the teachers to be, he hasn’t done this.

When students who were grieving the deaths of their own families and friends in Gaza and decided to walk out of class and do a pro-Palestine protest, Clare threatened them with the absence appearing on their attendance record and if they missed out on any assessments or exams, they weren’t going to get to sit them again.

That shows how far the politicians are going in choosing one side. This is propagating the sentiment against the pro-Palestine movement in the education system.

In November, a student, who’d just finished his HSC while witnessing the genocide of his own family and people, was then denied the right to attend his own graduation ceremony because he was wearing a Palestinian scarf, and when he refused to remove it, security threw him out of the venue, so he couldn’t attend.

This would not be happening if politicians and the ministers had not been taking a particular side.

That’s why I strongly believe this racism and the ill treatment towards the pro-Palestine movement and towards Arabs and Muslims is empowered and emboldened by the politicians themselves.

And lastly, Mariam, we’ve been speaking about the Free Palestine movement that rose up around the globe about 15 months ago.

So, how do you consider the diverse community that is the pro-Palestinian movement and what do you think will be its significance moving into the future?

The current pro-Palestine movement is unprecedented in the modern era. The fact that people from all walks of life from all over the world have come together and decided to march, protest, stand up for justice and stand against genocide is unprecedented.

There’s one mindset throughout the world, encouraging people to keep resisting this oppression. It’s absolutely phenomenal.

Uncle Coco, Wayne Wharton, who’s a Kooma Murri, said at the 20 October 2024 pro-Palestine rally in Hyde Park that what we see around the world at the moment for the first time in history is that imperialism is being questioned, being made accountable and brought to its knees.

And this is very true. Uncle Coco’s statement really summaries where we are at right now.

Yes, it starts with a genocide in Palestine. But it’s alerted the world to the past five centuries of colonialism and oppression and imperialism, and it’s brought like minded people together to fight against this oppression.

There is a vision of the way forward. There is a vision of, like Uncle Coco said, bringing imperialism to its knees.

It’s going to be a long battle – a lifelong one. But it is being ignited by the level of cruelty that the world is seeing right around the clock in Gaza at the moment.