Canberra: Muslim leaders in Australia have boycotted a meeting called by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, to show their anger over his statement in which Mr Morrison described “radical, violent, extremist Islam” as the greatest threat to Australia’s national security.
Mr Morrison had called a meeting this week in the wake of the Bourke Street terror attack in Melbourne on November 11. But some Muslim organisations, led by Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, boycotted the meeting, accusing Mr Morrison and other senior ministers of inflaming tensions in the Muslim community.
Saying that he had sought the meeting to “talk honestly” about ways for all communities to work together to make the country safer, Mr Morrison plans to go ahead with the meeting with representatives from those Muslim groups who are not part of the boycott.
Meanwhile, the Muslim leaders boycotting the meeting said in a letter to the Prime Minister that it was Mr Morrison’s comments in the aftermath of the Bourke Street attack that had inflamed the situation.