Police are investigating an incident at a mosque in western Sydney where a flag was stolen from outside the premises.
CCTV footage seen by SBS News shows a man standing on a ute who appears to use a knife to cut down the flag.
It appears that the man gets back into his car and drives away, taking the flag with him.
According to the timestamp on on the footage, the incident happened on Monday around 5pm.
This ‘really does break our heart’
Sefton Mosque and Ale Yassin community centre spokesperson Sheikh Mohammad Hourani said that they reviewed the footage when they realised the flag was missing.
“This brought a sense of fear into us. Where is the flag? Has the wind blown it away? And then when we reviewed the footage and [saw] this, we were in absolute shock,” he told SBS News.
“What if someone else was there and this knife was brandished?
“There is a lot of fear going into the community right now.”
He said the flag represents the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed — the significance of whom is a key element of the Shi’a branch of Islam — and “the mosque’s identity and values”.
“The community centre is a centre that has been established on core values of bringing harmony, peace, and respect into the community,” he added.
Harouni said that the community has since increased night-time patrols around the mosque.
“We have brothers who have volunteered to just do drive-arounds late into the night, early into the morning just to make sure that everything is safe at the mosque, to make sure that no one is lurking around doing something that could put the safety of others in jeopardy,” he said.
‘We pray that the government does look at this’
According to Hourani, the incident was reported to the police on 5 March but the community has not heard any news since.
Hourani told SBS News that the CCTV footage — in which the vehicle’s number plate appears to be visible — had been supplied to the police.
“Unfortunately, this is the same situation that we have been facing. It’s falling on deaf ears,” he said.
“There is a growing issue of Islamophobia, and this has a very significant impact on the community that we are living in,” Hourani said.
“All of these coming together and now this act of brandishing a knife at the mosque has brought tremendous fear into the heart of the Muslim community.
“There is a fear, people do not want to attend these places. However, we also have people that now want to attend these places even more to protect the individuals that are at the mosque.”
“We do pray that the government does look at this, that the government does keep an eye on what is taking place because there is now a portion of the community that is in fear and doesn’t know what steps to take next.
“I also would hope that the police will investigate this issue and that the government, the same way that they have taken a stance on antisemitism … We are against antisemitism, we are against all of these issues that bring a sense of questionable concern to any other religion.”
Police have confirmed to SBS News that the incident was being investigated but did not respond before publication to a request for comment on Hourani’s criticisms.
Rising Islamophobia
Earlier this week, in southwest Sydney.
The alleged threat was made in a comment on the mosque’s Instagram page on Monday.
It appeared to be referring to the 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch, when a shooter gunned down 51 people during Friday afternoon prayer — the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s history.
Also, in mid-February, a woman
The woman said she was visiting Pacific Epping, a shopping centre in Melbourne’s north, on her work lunch break when a woman “came out of nowhere” and hit her across the face.
In early December, a school bus belonging to an Islamic school in Adelaide was set on fire.
Police told SBS News at the time they had received no evidence the arson was racially motivated and the investigation would be closed pending further information.
Later that month, Western Sydney residents woke to Islamophobic graffiti plastered on a busy road underpass.
According to Islamophobic Register Australia’s report in January 2025, there has been an increase of 540 per cent in Islamophobic incidents since 7 October 2023.
