<p>2005 Cronulla riots
Police observing crowds prior to
confrontations
The Cronulla riots of 2005 were a series
of racially motivated mob confrontations
which originated in and around Cronulla, a
beachfront suburb of Sydney, New South
Wales, Australia. Soon after the riot, ethnic-
ally motivated violent incidents occurred in
several other Sydney suburbs.
On Sunday, 11 December 2005, approxim-
ately 5000 people gathered to protest against
recently reported incidents of assaults and
intimidatory behaviour by groups of non-loc-
als, most of whom were identified in earlier
media reports as Middle Eastern youths from
the suburbs of Western Sydney, against
white Australians who had skin areas ex-
posed which would not have been acceptable
by Islamic law. The crowd assembled follow-
ing a series of earlier confrontations, spe-
cifically
an assault
on
three
off-duty
lifesavers which took place the previous
weekend.[1] The crowd initially assembled
without incident, but violence broke out after
a large segment of the mostly white [2] Aus-
tralian crowd chased a man of Middle
Eastern appearance into a hotel and 2 other
youths of Middle Eastern appearance were
assaulted on a train.
The following nights saw several retaliat-
ory violent assaults in the communities near
Cronulla and Maroubra, large gatherings of
protesters around western Sydney, and an
unprecedented police lock-down of Sydney
beaches and surrounding areas, between
Wollongong and Newcastle.
Earlier events
2GB Radio broadcaster Alan Jones was ac-
cused of inciting the riots
[3] by fueling
largely anti-Middle Eastern sentiments from
callers on his talk show. He was found by the
Australian
Communications
and Media
Authority (ACMA) to have breached the com-
mercial radio code by broadcasting material
that was likely to encourage violence, in the
lead up to the riot. [4]
11 December the riot
Crowds gathered at North Cronulla amid
Australian flags and anti-Lebanese fanfare.
On Sunday 11 December 2005, an estimated
crowd of 5000 gathered at Cronulla beach.[5]
In the