The Australian Human Rights Fee has accepted a piece 18C grievance towards the Hindu Council of Australia (HCA), its president Mr Sai Paravastu and Ms Neelima Paravastu, the council’s head of PRO, Media & Advertising. The grievance was lodged by the Alliance In opposition to Islamophobia (AAI) and is being legally represented by Birchgrove Authorized.
The grievance issues conduct between September 2024 and July 2025 and alleges that the HCA, Mr Paravastu and Ms Paravastu engaged in severe and repeated public acts of racial hatred towards South Asian Muslims. Based on the grievance, the conduct was primarily disseminated by means of social media platforms together with X (previously Twitter) and Instagram, and in addition by means of conventional media. The posts are alleged to be moderately more likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate individuals on the premise of their Muslim ethno-religious origin.
AAI stated the behaviour of HCA members left Muslim neighborhood members feeling “marginalised and unwelcome in their very own neighborhood.” “The HCA’s mission speaks of dwelling in concord with different spiritual and cultural communities, but the behaviour now we have skilled is the precise reverse,” an AAI spokesperson stated. “As Muslim members of Australia’s numerous multicultural material, we can not merely stand by whereas an organisation acts towards the very rules it claims to advertise.”
The grievance seeks a proper public apology from HCA and its committee members, instant removing of the offending materials from all platforms, an enforceable endeavor to stop additional vilifying conduct, and compensation for hurt and misery brought about.
Moustafa Kheir, Principal Lawyer at Birchgrove Authorized, stated the publications “constantly depict Muslims, significantly these of South Asian descent, as inherently felony, uniformly threatening to society, and as a bunch that must be excised or exiled from public locations.” He described the alleged conduct as “threatening and exclusionary.”
The Australian Human Rights Fee has confirmed it can not touch upon particular person complaints however is believed to have accepted the matter. The AHRC course of would ordinarily enable the events to try conciliation earlier than any potential referral to a courtroom.
Neighborhood voices essential of the alleged behaviour have additionally spoken up. Hindus for Human Rights Australia & New Zealand (HfHR ANZ) stated it represents nearly all of Hindus in Australia who reject “hate and othering.” “We symbolize nearly all of Hindus in Australia who reject hate and othering. We’ll proceed to foster friendships throughout faiths and cultures to construct a robust, resilient and peaceable Australia,” the group stated. In the identical assertion HfHR ANZ described the allegations as “disturbing” and careworn their ongoing work creating interfaith areas and opposing Islamophobia alongside different social-justice causes.
The grievance locations renewed consideration on communal tensions and the tasks of organisations and leaders that declare to symbolize spiritual communities. If conciliation fails, outcomes might embody enforceable undertakings or potential courtroom motion beneath the Racial Discrimination Act.
