NEWCASTLE, Australia (AP) — Muslim groups in Australia on Friday criticized the disparity in the police response to two stabbing attacks in Sydney this month, saying it had created a perception of a double standard and further alienated the country’s minority Muslim community. The Australian National Imams Council said an attack at a Bondi Junction shopping center was “quickly deemed a mental health issue” while the stabbing of a Christian bishop at a Sydney church two days later was “classified as a terrorist act almost immediately.” “The differing treatments of two recent violent incidents are stark,” the council’s spokesperson, Ramia Abdo Sultan, said in a statement with the Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network. “Such disparities in response create a perception of a double standard in law enforcement and judicial processes,” she said. |