ECAJ statement on desecration of the Hindu temples at Florey and Mawson in Canberra on Saturday, 26 October.

The ECAJ is alarmed and sad­dened to hear of the delib­er­ate tar­get­ing of two Hin­du tem­ples in Can­ber­ra; the wan­ton destruc­tion of the community’s sacred idols and oth­er items; and the theft of char­i­ta­ble dona­tions. These hate­ful and cal­cu­lat­ed crimes were per­pe­trat­ed by uniden­ti­fied mem­bers of the pub­lic in advance of the Hin­du fes­ti­val of Diwali and are the lat­est in a series of tar­get­ed attacks against the tem­ples.

The after­math of the inci­dents evi­dences an inten­tion to not only steal from the tem­ples, but also to attack the Hin­du cul­ture by break­ing the Shi­va Lingam, the deity of Lord Shi­va.

The ECAJ urges mem­bers of the pub­lic to come for­ward, and hopes that the police will take all nec­es­sary steps to iden­ti­fy the per­pe­tra­tors and hold them to account.

ECAJ co-CEO, Peter Wertheim said:

Such hate-filled des­e­cra­tion of the holy sites of our friends, the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty, has no place in mul­ti­cul­tur­al Aus­tralia.

At this dif­fi­cult time, when social cohe­sion is under threat and peace-lov­ing Aus­tralians are being tar­get­ed sole­ly on the basis of their racial or reli­gious iden­ti­ty, we wish to express our deep­est sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty. We extend our offer to assist in any way we can to help the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty over­come the effects of this attack.