Man charged with sending Sydney race riot texts
The 33-year-old man the first to be charged under federal law for sending messages linked to the unrest via mobile phone faces a maximum three-year sentence if convicted. Police said they expected to arrest more people who wrote or forwarded such messages in the coming days.
Police said in a statement that the suspect forwarded two messages to several people calling for them to meet at two southern Sydney beaches last Sunday a week after thousands of white Australians rioted there, attacking people of Middle Eastern appearance.
Police say a blizzard of mobile phone text messages was sent in the days before the December 11 riot urging people to mass at Sydney's Cronulla beach to protest against the beating a week earlier of two volunteer lifesavers.
The protest erupted into a race riot and sparked two nights of retaliatory attacks by youths of Middle Eastern appearance, also spurred by text messages.
In the days after the violence, more messages circulated in Sydney and other Australian cities urging violence on December 18.
Police commander Dennis Bray said detectives and phone companies were trying to trace the texts.
David Bernie, vice-president of the New South Wales state Council for Civil Liberties, said his group was worried at new police powers to confiscate phones. "We are concerned about the move towards simply police being able to seize people's phones and check their messages without a warrant or some other basis for doing it," he said.
"Any interception of communications should really be done by a search warrant."
About 2,000 officers patrolled Sydney beaches last weekend, stopping and searching cars and confiscating mobile phones in an unprecedented operation credited with preventing a repeat of the violence.
Some 800 police are being deployed to Sydney beaches for most of the southern hemisphere summer, which lasts until February.
Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said he believed the violence would not flare up again.
"I really am quite optimistic that people will see that nothing is ever achieved by violence," he said in Sydney.
New South Wales state tourism minister Sandra Nori announced an advertising blitz to lure people back to Sydney's beaches after coastal cafes and bars reported a slump in takings by up to 75% since the clashes.
"It's time to return to these local beach communities to show your support," Ms Nori said.
Authorities in Britain, Canada and Indonesia this week issued warnings to their citizens to be on their guard for possible racial violence at Sydney's beaches, prompting fears of a tourism backlash.
But authorities have said there has been no apparent fall in the number of people flying to Sydney for the busy holiday period.
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