A hostage runs towards a police officer outside Lindt cafe
A hostage runs towards a police officer outside Lindt cafe, where other hostages are being held, in Martin Place in central Sydney December 15, 2014. Two more hostages have run out of the cafe at the center of a siege in Sydney, Australia's largest city, according to a Reuters witness at the site. The two women were both wearing aprons indicating they were staff at the Lindt cafe where a gunman has been holding an unknown number of hostages for several hours. Three men had earlier run out of the cafe. REUTERS/Jason Reed

The Australian Defence League was accused of anti-Islamic prejudices during the Sydney siege on Monday. It published a message on Facebook that created the controversy.

The ADL message on Facebook asked who was ready to converge on Lakemba as retaliation. "If 1 person is harmed we are calling on all Australians to converge on Lakemba tonight," the post said. Australia has its one of the largest mosques in the Lakemba suburb. The region has a predominantly Muslim population. The place often represents the Arab population in the country to media. While Channel 10 labelled the message as racist, the ADL reacted to Channel 10's decision to term the message racist. Newsweek reported that ADL asked Channel 10 to go to an Islamic country. It also asked the news network to "get an Islamist to spew your left wing bigotry."

The Australian population, on the contrary, was apparently more interested in maintaining the solidarity against anti-Islam prejudices. The hashtag #illridewithyou soon became viral on Twitter. The hashtag was used by users who wanted to show their support for the Muslim community in the country amid the siege which apparently involved an Islamist radical. The gunman, who had held dozens of people as hostages in a café, was later identified as Man Haron Monis. He was reported to be an Iranian refugee facing a number of charges. BBC reported that the man, who had received political asylum in Australia in 1996, had been out on bail. He forced hostages to put up an Islamic flag on the window. The black flag had white Arabic writings which said that "There is no God except Allah" and "Mohammad is the only messenger."

The ADL, which practises a far-right political ideology, was apparently enraged by the "Islamic" connection with the siege. It expressed its apparent fury on Facebook with a post where it demanded for a ban on Islam. It said that the siege was a result of home-grown Islamic terrorism in Australia's backyard. The ADL blamed it all on "successive Australian governments and their brainwashed voters." The ADL President Ralph Cerminarra earlier went near the scene of the siege and started shouting abuse. Officers had to drag him away from the scene as he angrily suggested that Australia's left wing bigotry was responsible for the probable death of Australian civilians.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au

RELATED STORIES