ABC 7.30: VIDEO: LGBTQI teens targeted in IS-inspired attacks
Michael Barnett OAM
VIDEO: LGBTQI teens targeted in IS-inspired attacks
LGBTQI teens targeted in IS-inspired attacks
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP, REPORTER: Nearly two years before the Bondi attack, a new generation was embracing the Islamic State terrorist group in Sydney and on social media.
(Extract from video)
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Online clips surfaced showing ISIS supporters hunting and bashing gay and bisexual teenagers in Sydney’s suburbs.
(Extract from video)
NATHAN: It very much felt like a hate crime. It’s just pure rage. Just pure detest for me being who I am.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The videos have been provided to 7.30 by victims, members of the public and the District Court to warn the nation about a wave of violence against gay and bisexual people across Australia.
The first known victim of the ISIS-inspired attacks was ‘James’, a 16-year-old Wiradjuri boy from Sydney’s south-west.
On a school night in March 2024, he found a match on Wizz, a dating app for teenagers.
JAMES: He wanted to meet up and me thinking it was a good idea to meet up, I met up with him.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: We can’t identify them under Australian law because they were juveniles.
JAMES: He introduced himself as Johnny. I got into his car and we started driving.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Two teenagers hid in the car boot. A fourth attacker waited at Strathfield Park.
JAMES: I started walking towards the park and he's like, whoa, whoa. I look up, his friends, they're all covered in black, all came and jumped me.
(Extract from video)
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: They filmed James as they punched him, held him by the collar and hurled him to the ground.
JAMES: I remember them kicking me in the back, in the leg and in the chest and my whole face. I’m lucky to be alive.
It's really hard to trust people these days now. I can't go out by myself anymore.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The video, later found on the attackers’ phones, shows one wearing a Shahada, a religious emblem appropriated by ISIS.
Researcher Josh Roose has been tracking a surge in similar attacks by teenagers from across the ideological spectrum and has found LGBTQIA+ people are among the most likely targets of violent extremism.
JOSH ROOSE, DEAKIN UNIVERSITY: This is the sort of violence that we've seen, albeit stopping short of killing, in Islamic State propaganda.
This is young men luring, effectively hunting, young gay men on these apps, and then bashing them into unconsciousness.
(Extract from video)
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: In the weeks that followed, the group struck again, with bashings reported across the Sydney city and west before the ISIS-inspired violence escalated.
A 16-year-old associate stormed a live streamed church service in Wakeley and stabbed a bishop who’d insulted the prophet Muhammad.
Court documents reveal counterterrorism police uncovered links between the attackers. Investigators allege they were part of an ISIS network involving some of the country’s most influential jihadist recruiters and radicalisers.
Police raided the alleged network charging four teenage associates of the Wakeley attacker with planning another terrorist attack targeting Jews.
KRISSY BARRETT, AFP COMMISSIONER (April 2024): We identified links between the alleged offender and a network of associates and peers who we believe shared a similar violent extremist ideology.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Five associates aged just 14 to 17 were separately charged over the gay bashings.
Police found gruesome propaganda on their phones and evidence linking them to preachers like Wisam Haddad - a spiritual leader who has publicly endorsed Islamic State.
WISAM HADDAD: We do not hide from the fact that homosexuality under the shari'a - after being judged with the Quran and the sunnah by an Islamic judge, in an Islamic court, in Islamic lands - is punishable by death.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: One of the alleged terrorists took this selfie inside Haddad’s Bankstown prayer hall, Al Madina Dawah Centre, captioning it "new Dawla or Islamic State recruit".
It was less than two years before the centre was ordered to shut down after links emerged to the Bondi attackers.
JOSH ROOSE: The link with Wisam Haddad, is very important. This is an individual who has been preaching hate on our streets for many years. Very strategically staying on the right side of the law. He has a strong following, amongst whom we've seen many individuals who then gone on to be convicted of violence or linked to Islamic State.
The assaults were very clearly a potential early warning sign.
(Extract from video)
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Despite the arrests, more videos of ISIS-inspired attacks surfaced in local chat groups.
(Extract from video)
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: New South Wales Police said they haven’t identified the victim or his attackers.
(Extract from video)
HEATHER CORKHILL, EQUALITY AUSTRALIA: There is an element of fear, certainly within minority ethnic communities. That may mean that people, uh, feel that they have to stay silent particularly if you are, uh, not out to your family or to your community. It may not be at all safe to come forward to police.
We believe it's chronically under reported, undercharged and under prosecuted in Australia.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: One victim who did go to police was ‘Nathan’, but he would be dismayed by the outcome.
Last April, the 20-year-old student arranged on Grindr to meet at night in Sydney’s south-west with someone posing as a man in his 30s.
NATHAN: He led me down to a drain way and when he flashed his light on me, that's when I just vaguely got a glimpse of his face and realised this is not the person who I was talking to.
(Extract from video)
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Nathan was unconscious within seconds, but his 17-year-old attacker continued to stomp on his head and later posted this video online. He left with Nathan’s phone.
NATHAN: By the time I did realise that this was not the person I was talking to, I had woken up in the dark lying on the floor. My face was bruised, bloody. I didn’t realise I didn’t have my phone on me until I was like searching around on the ground and I tried looking for help.
I was still in shock. I was frantically crying, upset.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Nathan was taken to hospital with a broken nose and eye socket, gashes across his face and a deviated septum which still causes breathing problems.
NATHAN: My mum, she walked straight past my bed because she couldn't recognise my face and that's how severe my injuries were.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: A police source has told 7.30 the teenager who assaulted Nathan was part of the same jihadist network as the other attackers with relatives who’d fought for ISIS.
His court records reveal police suspected him of more attacks, but he hasn’t faced further charges.
NATHAN: They mentioned that they had videos of himself attacking other individuals and it made me realise I'm probably the first person to take him or choose to charge him with assaulting me.
It worries me that he could show up at any time.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: The attacker pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery but walked free on probation, with no conviction recorded.
NATHAN: It's unbelievable that he gets to walk free. He can do what he did again, and he is a threat to me, my family, anyone else who identifies themselves as a gay man.
HEATHER CORKHILL: This crime wasn't taken seriously enough. Depending on where you are in Australia, there may may be no laws or hate crime laws that actually recognise LGTBIQ+ people.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Today, the New South Wales Premier announced a crackdown on gay hate crimes in response to the videos obtained by the ABC.
CHRIS MINNS, NSW PREMIER: They’re absolutely shocking examples of violent crime in our community directed against individuals because of their sexuality. I’ve spoken to the cabinet office and the attorney general’s department today about looking at changes to the law to put in massive new penalties specifically to target this abhorrent behaviour
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Two of the teenagers convicted over the earlier bashings also walked free on probation.
The young predator who posed as Johnny was jailed for at least six months.
A chat on his phone revealed he’d been bragging about hunting and bashing gay people since 2023.
JOSH ROOSE: Well, historically, there have been many incidences of gay bashing, as it's called.
However, what we've seen here most recently with these videos is a willingness to use extreme violence well beyond what I've identified in other extremist stacks that I've seen online.
SEAN RUBINSZTEIN-DUNLOP: Figures obtained by 7.30 show New South Wales Police recorded 36 attacks since 2023, with more across the country by young people driven with various motivations.
But the figures aren’t recorded nationally.
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry was last week established to investigate the so-called Grindr attacks.
HEATHER CORKHILL: We believe that the attacks are increasing but it is at this point, we don't have the data to really create a full picture of what's occurring.
JOSH ROOSE: It's only a matter of time before a young man or young men are killed but more broadly, it's absolutely critical that events such as Mardi Gras, gay pride parades and so on are adequately resourced and funded and protected against hatred.
NATHAN: It should be recognised as a hate crime for being who I am as a person and just show them that this action is sadistic. It is very sadistic.
Islamic State supporters have hunted and bashed gay and bisexual teenagers in Sydney and posting videos of the violent attacks on the internet.
Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop from ABC Investigations has this report and a warning, it contains distressing and violent images.