My thoughts after Anti-terrorism raids in Australia today: I am not convinced!!!

The authorities (all of them including government, security agencies, politicians and media) want all of you to believe that we suddenly discovered that we have terrorists in our country.

These terrorists became terrorists overnight. They developed strong relations with ISIS commanders overnight. And they accepted to act on these commanders’ orders also overnight.

They want all of you to believe that there were no brainwashing campaigns for years. They want you to think that there were no community organisations working day and night in brainwashing, organising, recruiting and fundraising for extremists. They want to tell you that all sectarian violence, burning houses and businesses, shooting and stabbing rivals and extortion of businesses in suburbs were all our imaginations.

Until mid last year, the Police deputy commissioner was quoted saying to journalist about the attacks and threat on me and my friends to be “unsubstantiated” and “everything is ok”. And when I complained about this to the Minister for Police, I received no answer until today.

The authorities were deadly silent on shooting of Ali Ibrahim, extortion of businesses run by Shia and Alawi Australians, burning Naji and Al Hariri chicken shops, sending death threats to me and attacking me outside AL Bukhari bookstore and then outside Al Risalah bookstore.

The authorities even violated its obligations under Geneva conventions when they allowed Takfiri extremists to rampage the Syrian embassy, and arrested no one until today (despite the fact that the embassy officials surrendered photages of perpetrators to authorities).

The authorities did not do anything when we provided them with leaflets urging community members to donate to buy ammunitions for Syrian “revolutionists”. The leaflet stated very clearly that Syrians need ammunitions and not milk or medicines. The leaflet asked community members to donate $150 to buy magazine of bullets for Kalashnikov or $1500 to buy Kalashnikov itself.

Authorities, including our publicly funded SBS and ABC, were actively recruiting terrorists to fight in Syria when they adopted and broadcasted all fabrications and lies by Syrian “revolutionists”. The same media are still insisted to continue deceiving all of us by allocating all air to community “leaders” to lecture us about fighting against extremism they created and grew out of control. The same media that conducted extensive interviews with extremists like Zaky Mallah and Yahya EL Kholed and portrayed them as “heroes” who went to Syria to help in humanitarian aid work. They were the same media that portrayed dead terrorists (Majzoub, Abbas, Tubrikaya....) as human aid workers killed by dictator regime.

Suddenly, all these authorities want to convince you that some youth went mad overnight and became extremists that want to “do harm to us”. As if people could be born terrorist: no need of brainwashing, recruiting, training, financing and putting within networks.

So what is the role of our authorities who turned blind eyes on Al Bukhari, Al Rislaah, Iqra bookstores and other centres of hate and allowed them to brainwash our youth in reaching ?

Why did our authorities turn blind eyes on our convicted terrorists and known extremists leaving to fight in Syria, until recently?

Why did our authorities turn blind eyes on fundraising activities and money transfer to extremists overseas, until yesterday?

Why did our authorities consider myself as trouble maker for standing up against sectarian hate campaigns in our society, and asked me to stop provoking extremists by calling them extremists and demand stop of attacks on businesses and activities?

Did authorities convince you that terrorist attack is imminent... only when US decided so!!!

Did authorities convince you when they claim that Jamal Rifi and Keysar Trad are part of solution of growing extremism instead of being major parts of the problem?!!!!

While I am very happy that the authorities started to crack down on extremists, but I am not convinced....