From its clubhouses in Melbourne and Sydney, the Lads Society promotes drug-free...
SYDNEY - From its clubhouses in Melbourne and Sydney, the Lads Society promotes drug-free living and exercise, as well as “white resistance” and Islamophobia, according to online statements and interviews with two of its leaders.
In the hours after the shootings, the Lads Society’s private Facebook page lit up as its members discussed the attack and the man arrested and charged with murder, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, according to five screenshots of the Facebook messages which were provided by a person with access to the group and reviewed by Reuters.
ASIO said it does not comment on specific individuals, intelligence or operational matters but was alert to the threat from people with “extreme right-wing ideologies”. The Australian Federal Police also declined to comment when asked about any ties Tarrant had to the Lads Society. However, Sewell’s messages to the private group on the Lads Society Facebook page, which carried the same profile photo as a photo posted on Sewell’s Instagram account, add to evidence Tarrant was engaged with Australia’s far right.
“We are a tolerant, multicultural society, the most successful immigration country on the planet,” he said, before pivoting to a darker undercurrent. “These white supremacist, white separatist views, are not new. I mean, these sentiments have sadly existed in Australia for hundreds of years.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing archives of the deleted Facebook account of the United Patriots Front , another Australian far-right group, Tarrant described one of that group’s leaders, Blair Cottrell, as “Emperor”. Reuters was unable to independently verify that detail.
In 2017, Cottrell and two other UPF members were found guilty of inciting contempt of Muslims after they filmed a mock beheading outside council offices to protest a mosque development in the small Victorian city.White extremists gained momentum in 2014 after an Islamist gunman took a group of hostages in a Sydney cafe, analysts and members of the movement say.
In Australia’s latest census, about 90 percent nominated their ancestry as Australian or European, while 2.5 percent were recorded as Muslims.
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