“Ms Shoma has been charged with one count of engaging in a terrorist act, with police alleging she was ‘self-radicalised.'”
How do police know that? Because the family says they’re shocked? Have police simply accepted what the family said at face-value, or have they conducted an informed and thorough investigation of what the family believes and what Momena Shoma was taught growing up?
Also, have police been to any mosques that Momena Shoma attended in Australia? Have they investigated what was taught there?
It is unlikely in the extreme that the police have investigated either the family or the mosque(s), since the attack only took place Friday afternoon. But nonetheless, they’re going on record with this nonsense that she was “self-radicalised.” It is easier to do that than to consider — even to consider! — the possibility that sympathy for the Islamic State and belief in the jihad imperative are far more widespread among Muslims in Australia than authorities would like to believe.
More on this story. “‘She’s a brilliant student’: family of alleged IS stabber shocked,” by Aisha Dow and Neelima Choahan, Sydney Morning Herald, February 11, 2018:
The family of a Bangladeshi student alleged to be behind an “Islamic State-inspired attack” in Melbourne say they are baffled by the arrest of the “brilliant student” who had received a scholarship to study in Australia.
Momena Shoma, 24, is accused of stabbing 56-year-old nurse Roger Singaravelu in the neck while he was asleep at their home in Mill Park on Friday afternoon.
Police have claimed she was wearing a burqa during the bloody attack witnessed by the man’s five-year-old daughter.
Ms Shoma has been charged with one count of engaging in a terrorist act, with police alleging she was “self-radicalised”.
The Age spoke to the woman’s family in Bangladesh as they made attempts to contact her in custody on Sunday.
Her uncle Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a senior university official in the capital, Dhaka, said the news of her arrest had come as a major shock and he was struggling to believe the allegations.
“As a family we are totally, totally devastated,” Dr Aziz said.
“We are trying to contact her and her father is trying to talk to her.”
Ms Shoma arrived in Melbourne on February 1 to study linguistics at La Trobe University, where she had been given a 25 per cent “excellence” scholarship.
She had been lodging with Mr Singaravelu for only one day when the alleged attack took place.
She wanted to become a university teacher and was previously a student at one of the top private universities in Bangladesh, North South University, her family say.
Her mother died about a year ago from diabetes and her father, a manager of an insurance company, has limited English and is reportedly devastated….
Victoria Police acting Deputy Commissioner Ross Guenther said comments made by Ms Shoma when she was interviewed by police led them to believe the incident was terrorism related.
“In the course of some disclosures in the interview it became apparent that circumstances led them to believe it was a terror attack,” he said. “That then saw the Joint Counter Terrorism Team take over.”…