NAZI HATE CLAN HERE

EXCLUSIVE by LINDA BRADY

WHITE supremacist organisation World Church of the Creator has launched a propagnda attack on Rockhampton with a sticker campaign promoting a racially aggressive anti-Semitic and anti-Christian website.

NAZI GROUP SURFACES IN ROCKY

A WHITE supremacist organisation calling itself the World Church of the Creator launched a propaganda attack on Rockhampton this week, with a sticker campaign promoting a racially aggressive anti-Semitic and anti-Christian website.

While the group's local organisers have hidden behind an anonymous Rockhampton post office boxnumber, the primary target of their attack appears to have been the Palmtree Wutaru Aboriginal Corporation on East Street.

Chairman Colin Toby said the corporation's office window was covered in stickers bearing the slogan : 'White People Awake - Save the White Race" promoting an American-based website.

The site featured a thorough outline of the "churches" ideas on white superiority and non-white "sub-humanity".

"I am disgusted - this sort of thing shouldn't happen in this day and age," Mr Toby said.

Rockhampton CIB Officer-in-Charge Detective Senior Sergeant Don Trennaman said information about the group had been passed on to police intelligence and warned that acts of racial violence or harassment would not be tolerated.

The campaign has angered many community leaders - Rockhampton Bishop Brian Heenan summing up the community feeling saying : "This goes against the whole Australian spirit of tolerance."

Meanwhile, indigenous community identity Margaret Hornagold is urging people to be vigilant : "Don't just dismiss them or they will blossom and grow in the dark."

COMMUNITY AGHAST AT EXTREMISM

LEADERS from all walks of life lashed out at the WCOTC racial propaganda yesterday, sending a clear message its beliefs and objectives are not supported or welcome in the community.

*Gavan Palk (Regional Director Department of Community Corrections): "It's obviously a racist group and there is no place for them in a multicultural area like Rockhampton. What concerns me greatly is we've got an American extreme racial group trying to make inroads and play on racism in small rural towns."

*Barbara Harwood (RDPDA): "It is sad to see this kind of group in Rockhampton."

*Bruno Bryant (Corrective Services): "We have a group of people (indigenous) who are standing up to be counted and cowards that hide behind a post office box. That shows a difference in courage between the two groups and exposes these people for the vermin they are."

*Jane Morgan (Capricorn Tourism) : "That group won't have much of an effect. We're a country that is supposed to be race, creed and colour tolerant."

*Lloyd Willie (indigenous community) : "I'm surprised this came from America because that's where the slave trade and the KKK originate from. But we're not worried ... these groups come and go and we're the ones still here. God will forgive them."

*Ric Dutton (Health and welfare worker) : "It's appalling ... I'm amazed that in the 21st century people are stupid enough to propagate this kind of hate."

*Rhonda Shuker (Women's Health) : "It is so fringed it troubles me they even exist, but any reasonable person will reject them."

POLITICAL IDENTITES UNITED IN CRITICISM

DESPITE their political divisions in the this double election year, Rockhampton political identities were united in their condemnation of the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) yesterday, branding the group's propaganda "ugly" and "obscene".

"I am horrified anyone would genuinely hold those views. We've worked hard to build links between people of all backgrounds," Mayor Margaret Strelow said.

Federal Liberal candidate, Lea Taylor, said the presence of hate groups like WCOTC could have serious effects on the region's trade. "We don't need the reputation of being racist."

SUPREMACISTS SAY THAT 'WHITE IS RIGHT'

BASED in America, and with branches in most predominately "white" corners of the world, The Church of the Creator website listed three branches in Australia - one in Melbourne, one in South Australia and the third in Rockhampton.

There was no contact numberr or obvious email address, simply an anonymous post office box number for the Rockhampton Mail Centre.

My efforts to contact the local organisers of the group were unsuccessful, leaving me to try and contact the man at the helm who calls himself The Reverend Matt Hale, Pontificate Maximus.

Hale, who is a Doctor of Law based in the US state of Illinois, has been refused the right to practise in the states because of his racism.

After numerous attempts to speak to Hale directly, I was only able to access the Church's hotline and Hale's recorded message.

The message, which is refreshed every Tuesday, this week contained information about the group's "holiest" day, Klassen Day - the birthdate of the man who founded the organisation 28 years ago, Ben Klassen.

It is believed the sticker campaign in Rockhampton was organised to coincide with this day.

In Hale's message Klassen is credited as : "The saviour of the white race .. the man who gave the white race, finally a religion of its own". Hale completed his message with the war cry "Hail Ben Klassen - may we together win this racial holy war."

EDITORIAL - Get out, and stay out!

COWARDLY, intolerant, racist and victimising ...

Words like these from the region's community leaders yesterday aren't enough to reflect the disgust and anger which should be heaped on racist organisations such as the World Church of the Creator (WCC) trying to establish itself in Rockhampton.

That anyone could possibly judge people on the colour of their skin, their religious beliefs or their country of origin is deplorable and unintelligent.

When that person and his or her equally moronic colleagues, try to establish a global connection with others who might feel likewise, it's time for community anger to boil over and reach our legislative powers to ward off such scum.

The WCC is so unimaginatively akin to groups already fostered by the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis that we could simply dismiss them for their stupidity.

But to do so would be to open the doors to potential invasion of the minds of impressionable and equally unintelligent, people who might be looking for a sense of belonging or who hold misguided ideals.

Adolf Hitler capitalised on economic discontent in the 1930's and the KKK took advantage of US civil war rebel anger.

Australia, and specifically Rockhampton, should have just one coice on this issue : Get out and stay out!

We are a community which embraces new cultures, which applauds difference, which celebrates the value of all its people and which does not tolerate racial vilification at any level or in any form.

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