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Australian senator compares Muslims to ‘poisonous jelly beans’, calls for migration ban

Australian Senator Fraser Anning

Australian Senator Fraser Anning on Wednesday compared Muslims with “poisonous jelly beans”, in his maiden speech in the Senate urging for immigration restrictions based on race. He also called for migration bans on Muslims.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other politicians and community leaders criticized the Senator for suggesting a “final solution” (the phrase that refers to a plan hatched by Nazis to annihilate the Jews) to the immigration “problem”. Turnbull said Anning made “a shocking insult to the memory” of those murdered in the Holocaust.

At an interview in a Sydney talkback radio, Anning again targeted Muslims. “Look, if you can tell me which ones are not going to cause us harm, then fine, that’d be great. But unfortunately, if you have a jar of jelly beans and three of them are poisonous, you’re not going to try any of them,” he said to Alan Jones of radio 2GB, in an apparent reference to Muslims.

“I’m afraid that the Muslims, as a group, there’s going to be three or four or five percent that are going to mean us harm. Because I can’t tell who’s who, I think the safest thing for Australians is that we don’t have any of them,” he said.

Earlier in his Parliament speech, Anning said, “The record of Muslims who have already come to this country in rates of crime, welfare dependency and terrorism is the worst of any migrants and vastly exceeds any other immigrant groups. We have black African Muslim gangs terrorising Melbourne. We have Islamic State-sympathizing Muslims trying to go overseas to fight for it. While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims,” he said. He urged for a plebiscite to decide who enters Australia.

Muslim MP Anne Aly said that the Queensland Senator deliberately used “neo-Nazi, white supremacist terminology”.

“That was a deliberate use of a heinous word that brings back so many painful memories and sets a precedent for the future of our country that we need to stand up and stop it,” said a tearful Aly in Parliament.

“I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of having to stand up against hate, against vilification, time and time again.”

Previously, Anning also targeted international students as he asked for an “end to Australian-job-stealing 457 visas” and “force international students to return to their country of origin once they finish their education”.

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