Talk:2024 Wakeley church stabbing

Black jumper?

Both in this article and in that on 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings we have been very specific about the outer layer of clothing being worn by the assailants on their upper body. Here it's a black jumper; at Bondi it was a sports jersey. Almost nothing else about their appearance is mentioned. Hair colour would seem at least relevant as a jumper. Plus shoes, pants, etc. I know Australians can be very fashion conscious, but is this detail really of any value? HiLo48 (talk) 02:49, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Fingers cut or not?

The article first states the fingers of the perpetrator being cut as a rumour, before saying that his fingers were indeed severed as confirmed by the current Premier of New South Wales. This isn't clear. Clarify. 2A01:CB19:8ECF:BE00:A587:D5C9:B6CB:A3F7 (talk) 10:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Motive

Could everyone please discuss the motive here on talk rather than edit warring on and off in the infobox? Borgenland (talk) 07:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Although it's very likely Islamic extremism, I'd say it should be described as "religious extremism", since that's verbatim what the police have said (so far). Anything else seems like original research. Pinging @DeFacto, @SiculoAussie, @Gianluigi02. AbsoluteWissen (talk) 08:09, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with DeFacto's comments specifically on the infobox. The police statement on motive is already included in the body anyhow. AbsoluteWissen (talk) 09:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME says:

A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured.

If we assert a motive (by inserting one in the infobox) we are asserting that a crime has been committed. We cannot do that without a conviction having been secured.

In addition, WP:BLPRESTORE says:

To ensure that material about living people is written neutrally to a high standard, and based on high-quality reliable sources, the burden of proof is on those who wish to retain, restore, or undelete the disputed material. When material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Wikipedia's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. Material that has been repaired to address concerns should be judged on a case-by-case basis.

-- DeFacto (talk). 08:38, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:DeFacto

You have removed a numerous amounts of my edits stating the religious affiliation and motivation behind the attack, but it states in the article the assailant was heard saying the Takbir and also commented on the Bishop insulting his prophet afterwards, if what I wrote was wrong and the attackers motivation was not what I wrote, these comments should be removed off of the page too.

- SiculoAussie — Preceding unsigned comment added by SiculoAussie (talk • contribs) 11:16, 17 April 2024 (UTC)‎

@SiculoAussie, I gave the reasons in my edit summary and see above here. Per WP:BLPCRIME you need a conviction before you assert, or even "suggest" these things. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what the dispute here is about. If the question is what is the religion of the attacker, reliable (non-tabloid) media sources are now reporting that he comes from a Muslim family (e.g. SMH); hence, when the police call it "religious[ly] motivated extremism", they obviously don't wish to call attention to which specific religion it is the extremism of (lest doing so fan the flames of prejudice), but it isn't like we don't actually know which religion that is. There are also (per that SMH article) some questions over the mental health of the attacker, but difficulties in parsing the relationship between mental health issues and ideological terrorism are not a new issue (see the Lindt Cafe siege). SomethingForDeletion (talk) 09:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@SomethingForDeletion, the main problem is that we don't know who the attacker was. All we have at the moment is an alleged attacker, and per WP:BLPCRIME, we need a conviction before we can say that they have committed a crime. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@SomethingForDeletion - DeFacto is right. Until a court has decided what happened, we cannot state what the attacker's religion was, whether that was their motive, or anything on that front. HiLo48 (talk) 09:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The article uses the word "attacker" repeatedly. Are you saying every single mention of "attacker" needs alleged in front of it? And, if we can't mention the alleged religion of the alleged attacker – can we mention anything about them at all? The article currently says they are 16 – if we aren't allowed to mention their religion, why are we allowed to mention their age? Why single out some personal characteristics as "unmentionable" but not others? I don't think WP:BLPCRIME has much relevance here, because mentioning the personal characteristics of the (alleged) attacker, or what police (allege) their motive is, is not "suggest[ing] the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime" any more than saying there was an "attacker" or "perpetrator" was. Furthermore, I think that clause in WP:BLPCRIME is really about cases where there is reasonable doubt whether the alleged perpetrator actually committed the crime; when an attack is caught on video and the offender is arrested immediately afterwards, there is no rational doubt they actually committed the attack. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 11:35, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@SomethingForDeletion, the attacker is the person who did the attacking. We won't know who that was until we get a conviction. The 16-year-old suspect is currently the alleged attacker. Nothing that's reliably sourced is unmentionable, but we need to be careful not to conflate what we know about the suspect with what we know about the attacker.

WP:BLPCRIME is a Wikipedia policy, and means we cannot say that the suspect is the attacker.

What do we know? We know the age of the suspect, so it's fine to include that. I don't think we know the religion of either the suspect or the attacker - can you clarify how you think we do know it? I don't think we know the motive either, all we know is police hypothesis. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:54, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

SomethingForDeletion - There are facts we know about the attacker. There are facts we know about the accused. But we cannot write anything that implies that the accused is the attacker. HiLo48 (talk) 02:55, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

With respect to the motive behind the attack, the article asserts that this was "Islamic terrorism" (in the infobox and in some of the categories added). This assertion isn't supported anywhere in the article, so per WP:CATVER I propose removing these. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The Australian has an article Accused Islamist terror teen ‘poisoned by monster’ which I think supports that claim. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 09:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@SomethingForDeletion, that would only support the attributed opinion that "people who knew the suspect were worried about his religious views", or similar.

But without a conviction for terrorism we do not know whether it was a terrorist attack or who the attacker was anyway. So even if we could say that about the suspect's religious views, it wouldn't help support that infobox claim or those categories. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:38, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Riot infobox

Need to clarify. Was everyone involved a member of the church? Borgenland (talk) 12:12, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Terrorism?

This article asserts that this was an act of terrorism by including a terrorism sidebar and terrorist/terrorism categories. This assertion isn't supported in the article content (which only says that this is how the police are treating it) and the only apparent excuse for restoring these thing after I had deleted them was that the police are investigating it as such or the editor's own POV based on what they heard in a video from the church. I propose removing all content that asserts or implies terrorism rather than treating it as simply the police's current hypothesis. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree with doing that. The terrorism declaration is not so much a police hypothesis as police strategy to give themselves greater powers for investigation and for controlling the area. Given that nobody has been convicted, declaring it to be terrorism really is a step too far. HiLo48 (talk) 09:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The normal standard for articles on terrorist attacks on Wikipedia, is we don't wait for someone to be convicted of a terrorism offence for the article to say it is a terrorist attack, only for reliable sources to call it a terrorist attack or reporting the authorities as having declared it as one. Given ample reliable sources exist to support the claim that the authorities have labelled it as a "terrorist attack", I think that should be sufficient. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 09:29, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@SomethingForDeletion, I thought that the only time we could convince ourselves that that is acceptable was if the attacker was killed in the process and that there was thus no court case to test the police's assertion or the evidence for it. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

SomethingForDeletion - Did you actually read my comment? I explained why the police have called it terrorism, and pointed out that nobody has been convicted. Have you heard of a False flag operation? HiLo48 (talk) 09:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Your explanation as to "why the police have called it terrorism" is simply your personal opinion. Do you have a reliable source to support your opinion? Furthermore, we have to distinguish between "terrorist act" and "terrorist offence". The second is a category of criminal law, and we can't assert its existence absent a conviction. The first is primarily an extra-legal category (and also a concept with legal relevance in other areas of law than criminal), so whether or not we can say the second exists doesn't say anything about whether the first exists. Finally, I haven't heard of any serious suggestions of a "false flag operation" in this case, I'm not going to say they've never happened in human history, but the idea that one has happened in this particular case is a baseless conspiracy theory. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 04:22, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@DeFacto I also agree with your removal, and also want to point towards my agreement in the removal of the motive being 'Islamic Extremism' in the info box by you and several others. I think a brief press conference with the police stating they feel confident something is a motive shortly after the crime itself is premature speculation and would need further sources to be included as motive, or would need wording suggesting it was only suspected and not yet confirmed with a reference that states the same.

SiculoAussie please participate in talk discussion and await a consensus before further attempts to reinsert the disputed material suggesting it was Islamic extremism. Without multiple references to support the claim, it fails both WP:V and would be considered WP:OR . DeFacto has previously tried to get you to participate in the discussion prior to re adding the material. I only pinged you since you reinserted the material today without being involved in the consensus building process, which can be seen as being WP:DISRUPTIVE by being tendentious. At the last count, you have inserted it I believe it was 8 times.

Awshort (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Also asking why editor in question blanked important info in another aspect of the article that had nothing to do with motive. Borgenland (talk) 18:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: I didn't see the motive talk page discussion further down, which is where I should have added the note originally. My apologies. If anyone feels it is out of place here, please let me know. I'm trying to avoid moving it now so that the pinged users don't get multiple notifications

Awshort (talk) 18:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The motive of the perpetrator has been revealed, and why would you remove the motive but then quite literally include things that the child had said during the attack which confirm the motive?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/19/teenager-charged-with-terrorism-over-australia-church-stabbing-attack

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/church-stabbing-a-terrorist-incident-police-say-rioters-will-be-prosecuted-20240416-p5fk3r.html SiculoAussie (talk) 07:19, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Faccused-islamist-terror-teen-poisoned-by-monster-social-media-radicalisation-claim-after-bishop-mar-mari-wakeley-stabbing%2Fnews-story%2F747dfca793c74fd5d8a9aad9fe35d767&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=GROUPB-Segment-1-NOSCORE&V21spcbehaviour=append

This article is solidified proof of the motive in which I have written on the article. SiculoAussie (talk) 07:20, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

THis is heading down a dangerous direction. Yes, a person has been charged, but NOT convicted. He may be found to be innocent. Yet some editors want Wikipedia to state with certainty why the crime was committed. That is just wrong. We must not do that. HiLo48 (talk) 07:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I am not writing my edits in a mean to spout hate, I am writing them because it is the motive, there are things written all over the article which hint at the assailants motive, I am just confused about this, shouldnt they be removed as well? SiculoAussie (talk) 07:29, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@SiculoAussie It is a suspected motive, and must be labeled as such if it is to be included.

Going by the sources you shared above (excluding an analysis of The Australian because it's behind a paywall),

SMH link

“We believe there are elements that are satisfied in terms of religious motivated extremism and of course the intimidation of the public,” Webb said.

Aljazeera link:

No mention of motive

You have inserted it as Islamic extremism multiple times, which is not supported by the above quote and frankly not supported by the sources you want to justify it with. Multiple users have disputed this which you have reinserted, again, during the consensus discussion immediately following your reply above. Per WP:BLPCRIME, WP:V, WP:OR, and lastly WP:ONUS - If you insert this again, I will bring this to WP:ANI.

I strongly advise reading all of the above links and why they apply.

Awshort (talk) 07:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I forgot to clarify, I sent the Al-Jazeera link in order to emphasize the idea that it was a terrorist attack, even if you are to remove the motive in which I have written, it is still a terrorist attack as said by the Australian police multiple times and must be credited as so or else the Wikipedia article is missing key information. SiculoAussie (talk) 09:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Even if you do not state "religious terrorism" or "Islamic extremism" at least credit it as terrorism. SiculoAussie (talk) 09:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

NO!!!!! Without a conviction, that would just be wrong at this stage. HiLo48 (talk) 09:56, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

You cannot even write alleged? Even after the Australia authorities have confirmed it to be a terroristic act? SiculoAussie (talk) 09:59, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Alleged would be fine. HiLo48 (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

A "terrorist attack" is not a crime. A terrorist offence is a crime. A terrorist attack is not a category of criminal law, it is an extra-legal concept (and also plays some role in non-criminal law, see e.g. the Terrorism and Cyclone Insurance Act 2003, which does not require any criminal conviction to be applied). We can't say that someone is guilty of a terrorist offence without a conviction. But saying that a terrorist attack occurred is not saying that. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 07:13, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Of course it's not a terrorist attack.. To be a terrorist attack, the individual would have had to have motivated his intention religiously, to say "if he hadn't insulted my prophet" or he would have had to stab innocent people in the church for alleged criticism or offense brought to a religion by some words.

What is your definition of theorizing anyway? 86.126.133.178 (talk) 11:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb said during a press conference, "We believe there are elements that are satisfied in terms of religious motivated extremism" and "After consideration of all the material, I declared that it was a terrorist incident." It was declared as a terror attack and I believe it should be treated as one until police say otherwise 106.71.58.30 (talk) 11:57, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

That may be the view of some police officers, but we need to wait to see if the police have enough evidence to convince the courts to reach that conclusion before we can treat it as such. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:31, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

The courts decide whether a terrorist offence has been committed, since that is a legal category. The courts don't decide whether something counts as a terrorist incident, since that is not a criminal law category. If the police, government and mainstream media are calling it a terrorist incident, they aren't invoking a legal category in doing so, I can't see why Wikipedia needs to wait for the separate and not directly relevant criminal law question to be answered by the courts. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 17:05, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

We already say the police have classified it as a terrorist incident, and that a terrorist charge has been laid, what more can we say? Asserting that it was a terrorist incident implies that the perpetrator must have committed a terrorist offence, and that may not be accepted by the courts. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Asserting that it was a terrorist incident implies that the perpetrator must have committed a terrorist offence: that's not true. Terrorism offences have precise legal definitions (e.g. elements of the crime). "Terrorist incident" or "terrorist attack" or "terrorism" lacks a precise definition. We can't assume that everything which meets some less formal definition of "terrorist incident"/"terrorist attack"/"terrorism" satisfies the precise legal definition of a "terrorism offence". That would be making an assumption which it isn't our job to make, it is up to the courts to make. But hence, labelling something as "terrorist incident"/"terrorist attack"/"terrorism" is not prejudging or assuming the answer to the different and separate legal question of whether the accused has committed one or more "terrorism offences". SomethingForDeletion (talk) 23:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

It is not mentioned that this individual belongs to the Islamic religion and that the act was religiously motivated. The fact that the individual is 15 years old does not change the act committed. No one was killed, not because he did not try to kill, on the video shows(why is not poster) how this individual struck with the knife at least 10 times in probably half a minute. And one more thing, what did the fact that the priest spoke against the pandemic dictatorship or against the vaccine have to do with the fact that he was the victim of this attack? Also, what did the fact that he criticized "other religions" have to do with the fact that he was attacked with a knife? Don't all religious leaders directly or indirectly criticize other religions? Rather than attack, we should call what happened attempted murder. 86.126.133.178 (talk) 11:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

"This individual" has not been found guilty of anything. He may be found to be completely innocent. That means we simply cannot say that the act was religiously motivated. HiLo48 (talk) 07:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

He hasn't been yet established to be guilty to a *criminal standard of proof*. However, there are weaker standards of proof – legally there is a weaker civil standard of proof, and then there are also non-legal/extra-legal standards of proof. And I think the latter is what we should be concerned with here, not the former. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

"Crime" categories

My understanding of crime categories is that we have to wait until there's a conviction to add them in the case of living suspects per WP:BLPCRIME. At least this is how we treat them in police brutality cases and I don't see why it would be different here. As such I've removed the "crime" categories for now. ^Falling_Gravity 21:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME is intended to protect the identity and reputation of a non-notable accused person. Since no-one has been named in connection with the stabbing, there is no identity or reputation to protect here. It is strange that this event is labelled as "terrorism" but not a crime. WWGB (talk) 03:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think BLP concerns are overwrought here, given (as you point out) the name of the accused has not been made public. And given they are a minor, decent chance it won't ever be. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 05:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Just because the 16-year-old isn't named doesn't mean Wikipedia policy doesn't apply to them. As noted by ABC News (Australia)'s coverage of the stabbing, terrorism is a specific crime in Australia which the teenager has been accused of. Other people have been charged with terrorism but it's ultimately up to a jury to decide. Even if the terrorism charges are ultimately dropped (like in some cases mentioned in that article) it's possible other charges could stick and then we could re-add the "crimes" categories. ^Falling_Gravity 07:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

"terrorism is a specific crime in Australia" isn't true. There are terrorist offences, which are crimes. But the overall concept of "terrorism" is not identical to the criminal law concept of "terrorist offence". You can have "terrorism" without anyone being charged with or convicted of a "terrorist offence". To give a specific example of this, in 2015 Joe Hockey legally declared the Lindt Cafe siege to be a "terrorist incident" under the Terrorism Insurance Act. His legal declaration of it as a "terrorist incident" was done under insurance law, it was completely unrelated to any criminal law questions. (I doubt they'll do that in this specific case–such a declaration legally nullifies terrorism exclusions in insurance policies, but this Church might not have any relevant insurance policies they could claim under, which would make such a declaration pointless.) SomethingForDeletion (talk) 07:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I meant "terrorist offence", it's covered in more detail the ABC article. I'm not an expert in Australian law, just here to make sure WP policy is being followed. ^Falling_Gravity 21:52, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There are over a dozen sources that clearly state that the Australian government has classified this as a terrorist act. I don't see why terrorism-related categories should be removed. The attacker was filmed making statements that unambiguously indicated that this was Islamic terrorism. Nebulousquasar (talk) 23:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you. Unfortunately there are editors here who want to apply policies like WP:BLPCRIME in a very pedantic way. Hypothetical scenario: a young woman is found dead in a well-known businessman's apartment. The businessman insists he had nothing to do with her death, the prosecutors charge him with her murder. It is common sense in that case that Wikipedia should not label it a "crime" prior to his actual conviction, since maybe there was no crime at all (an accidental death or suicide), and obviously labelling him as a "criminal" could be prejudicial to legal proceedings (influencing jurors), and could be defamatory (especially if he ends up being acquitted). By contrast, here we have a case where a person was caught in the act of committing a crime, there is no serious doubt about their guilt – the only way they could conceivably escape conviction would be if they claimed insanity or something similar – and since they are a juvenile their name has not been publicly released (so defamation is not an issue) and there is highly unlikely to be a jury trial (generally not used for juvenile cases in Australia), so concerns about prejudicing a jury aren't an issue. So, in this particular case, the concerns which motivate WP:BLPCRIME don't really apply. But some editors are pushing it pedantically anyway–I'm not going to speculate on what their reasons might be. I lack the energy to edit war with them over it. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 23:54, 30 May 2024 (UTC)