Australian woman charged with assaulting two Muslims

Australian police have charged a 31-year-old woman for assaulting two Muslim women at a shopping centre in Melbourne last week.

The woman from Pascoe Vale suburb is due in court on Wednesday, where it will be alleged that she targeted the two victims on 13 February because of their head coverings, local media report.

She allegedly grabbed and choked a 30-year-old pregnant woman using the latter's hijab at Epping shopping centre before pushing and slapping another 26-year-old woman in a separate assault 10 minutes later.

This comes two weeks after the country passed tough new laws against hate crimes following a recent string of high-profile antisemitic attacks.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday condemned the incident as "reprehensible". He rejected criticism that his government was taking Islamophobic attacks less seriously compared to antisemitic attacks.

"I take all attacks on people on the basis of their faith seriously, and they should all face the full force of the law," he told reporters.

Melbourne police say they are investigating reports of online threats against one of the two victims in the shopping centre. Both suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

On Tuesday, Australia's anti-Islamophobia envoy, Aftab Malik, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that "all forms of hate need to stop" and that the country's leaders must condemn the incident in Melbourne.

Earlier in the week, the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Rateb Jneid, expressed alarm over attacks on Muslims in the country and called the government's response "grossly insufficient".

Australia's government has described new laws passed in early February as the "toughest laws Australia has ever had against hate crimes".

It imposes mandatory jail terms ranging from one to six years for the use of hate symbols such as the Nazi salute.

The reforms come as attacks on Jewish targets have become a topic of fierce debate in the country.

Last week, two Australian nurses were suspended after a video appeared to show them threatening to kill Israeli patients and boasting about refusing to treat them.

In late January, Sydney police found a caravan containing explosives and an antisemitic note. A week before that, set alight and sprayed with antisemitic messages