How is it right that in our parliament it is OK to call Islam a ‘disease’, it is OK to refer to a ‘final solution’, it is OK to ridicule our religious attire?

• Mosques around world showered with flowers after massacre
  

Dear Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten,

I am an Australian Muslim woman. I am highly educated and hold a professional job. In fact, I spend a great deal of my working life with the Australian legal system. I am a wife. I am a mother. And tonight I am frightened, anxious and so very sad.

The tragedy that has occurred in Christchurch has pierced a hole in my heart that I cannot actually close. The grief is deep – these innocent people were simply praying when massacred by a man who had a deep disdain and hatred for them, not because they said or did anything but simply because they were Muslim.

Watching the images and hearing the eyewitness accounts is beyond traumatic. We have shed tears and expressed our hurt, but most of us have something in common – as hard as it is to say this, we are not surprised or shocked.

Why? Because we have lived with this fear for a long time now. Genuine fear that our lives are at risk simply because we are Muslim.

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