The chairman of the Parramatta mosque, where a teenager prayed before shooting dead a police employee, has said Muslims who reject Australian values should “get out”.
In his first sermon since 15-year-old Farhad Jabar shot and killed Curtis Cheng outside the Parramatta police headquarters in western Sydney last week, Neil El-Kadomi told hundreds of worshippers gathered for Friday prayers: “If you don’t like Australia, leave.”
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was asked on Friday whether people who did not like Australia should leave. He said it was “not compulsory to live in Australia” and “if you find Australian values unpalatable, then there’s a big wide world out there and people have got freedom of movement”.
The Parramatta mosque chairman had invited media into the mosque in an effort to quell tensions stemming from last week’s terrorist attack, and before a protest planned for later in the day by the anti-Islamic Party for Freedom.
Police closed roads around the mosque before the protest, which was not sanctioned by authorities.
El-Kadomi, speaking after prayers, said many Muslim people had waited a long time to come to Australia. “You should not abuse the privilege you are Australian, which is very important,” he told reporters just outside the prayer room.
“Get out. We do not need scumbags in the community.”
He rejected suggestions the mosque was a breeding ground for extremism. “I’m not hiding anything,” he said. “You see in the mosque, there’s not guns in it. We reject terrorism.”
Earlier, as he arrived at the mosque, El-Kadomi said young Muslims needed to be educated. Jabar was too young “to know what he was doing”, he said.
El-Kadomi said he was not concerned about the protest. “We can go inside the mosque, close the door, and don’t fight each other.”
But he said the various sectors of the community needed better lines of communication, including between Muslim people and the government.
“We have a language barrier between us and the prime minister,” he said. “We like the prime minister, we like the government ... we love our country.”