The unveiling of a mosque decades in the making has been tarnished by an alleged threat referencing a massacre of Muslim worshippers during their holy month of Ramadan.
A teenage boy has been charged after allegedly making an online threat to "Christchurch 2.0" the recently opened Australian Islamic House in southwest Sydney, triggering outrage and disappointment in the tightly knit community.
The 16-year-old was arrested in Western Australia on Tuesday after allegedly posting the Instagram comment, apparently referring to the massacre of 51 worshippers at a New Zealand mosque.
The murders were committed by Australian man Brenton Tarrant in March of 2019, with the sixth anniversary of the massacre coming in less than a fortnight.
The president of the Edmondson Park mosque, Mazhar Hadid, said the incident could have been a re-run of the Christchurch massacre so leaders were forced to take it seriously.
"People have been waiting for 25 years to see the completion of this project," he told AAP on Wednesday, only days after the $20 million mosque officially opened.
"Ramadan is a social and spiritual month and to start praying in this beautiful mosque this way affects you."
The teen was charged with creating false apprehension to the existence of threats or danger. He was granted conditional bail and will appear in a West Australian children's court in April.
Police said they did not believe there was an ongoing threat to the community.
Television producer Mohamed Youssef, 37, was a regular attendee at the mosque's former site and said the threat after the launch of the "absolutely stunning" building was very disturbing.
"I don't think (the 16-year-old's) age matters - it's probably even worse because if something like this is being ingrained into someone at that age, it's worrying," he said.
Community leaders say the terror-inspired taunt is far from an isolated example of Muslims being targeted with hate in Australia.
"The threat is deeply concerning towards the Muslim community," Grand Mufti Riad El-Rifai said on the steps of the mosque.
"Australia is a safe and secure country and we don't want people to further inflame this situation and tear its social fabric," he said.
Sheikh El-Rifai, a respected Islamic scholar who migrated to Australia from Lebanon two decades ago, said violent sectarian rhetoric had increased towards Muslims since Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir warned the use of inflammatory language could embolden the public.
"Politicians need to stop playing political football with the idea of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia," he said.
"For politicians to come out blatantly ... only enables and emboldens these comments made allegedly by a 16-year-old child."
Reported incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have spiked amid tensions over war and turmoil in Gaza.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said hate against any member of the community would not be tolerated, signalling his government was open to revisiting recent legal changes.
The controversial provisions, introduced to state parliament in February, made it a crime to publicly incite hatred on the grounds of race.
The legislation was criticised for not being extended to cover religious and LGBTQI communities.
"We haven't ruled out potentially changing it ... (but) we didn't have a moment to act because we were seeing unprecedented levels of anti-Semitism in NSW that were completely intolerable," Mr Minns said.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles joined other politicians and religious figures in condemning the "appalling" reference to the Christchurch attack.
"There is no place for Islamophobia in our nation and it's really important that we are standing with that community today and we are calling this out for what it is," he said.
