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The Australian
May 2, 2017 Tuesday
BYLINE: Jennine Khalik
A Sydney-based deputy editor of an influential pro-Syrian government
news site has been outed for posting racial slurs on notorious neo-Nazi
white supremacist website Stormfront.
Paul Antonopoulos, who was also employed by Charles Sturt University as
a lecturer, has resigned from Al-Masdar News following revelations he
used an alias on online forums, including Stormfront, railing against
interracial relationships and advocating white supremacy.
The Beirut-based Al-Masdar News, which is offered in Arabic and Spanish,
suspended Mr -Antonopoulos with pay for "hate speech" late Friday before
he quit at the weekend.
"It was recently brought to our attention that one of our journalists
was engaging in abusive behaviour on a public forum before and during
the time he was working with Al-Masdar News," Al-Masdar's board of
directors said, "Al-Masdar was unaware of the individual's abusive
history on this forum that included hate speech with derogatory remarks
about certain gender, ethnic and racial groups." In posts made between
2007 and 2017 under the username "Minimalistix," Antonopoulos allegedly
called Arabs "sand niggers", black people "negro trash", Hispanics
"spics", Brazilians "favella monkeys" and Asians "gooks".
In one post, he stated "we beautiful Europeans" did not "descend from
negro trash", and quoted a rant by a Norwegian neo-Nazi who claimed
white -Europeans were "not even of the same species as the other human
races".
Charles Sturt University yesterday confirmed Antonopoulos was "no longer
employed by the university" and his views "did not reflect" the views of
CSU.
Antonopoulos, whose online accounts state that he is 27, worked for
Al-Masdar News since 2015. The media outlet, founded in 2014, has an
inter-national audience and provides news, opinion and analysis that is
supportive of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government.
Antonopoulos was a sessional lecturer at CSU's Bathurst campus and is a
Western Sydney University research student. He has stated online that he
has qualifications in international relations.
He has also co-written a book with WSU academic Drew Cottle on the
Syrian conflict, published by Vij Books, expected to be released this month.
In a post on the anniversary of the Sydney siege in December 2015,
Antonopoulos used a gay slur to refer to slain victim Tori Johnson, who
was killed along with Katrina Dawson by gunman Man Haron Monis.
In April last year, after appearing live on Iranian state news, PressTV,
in his capacity as deputy editor, Antonopoulos posted in a football
forum he had to "rush home (for the interview), those dumb Persians only
gave me 25 minutes' notice."Antonopoulos initially agreed to speak to
The Australian but has subsequently failed to respond to questions.
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