Vietnamese and Sudanese Australians have criticised Channel Nine’s A Current Affair for a segment that featured an anonymous, masked “Vietnamese teenager” in Melbourne calling on people to “hurt any African youths” they see.

Community leaders said the report was irresponsible, misrepresented the community and was an incitement to violence.

The segment – headlined online as “The ‘race war’ brewing on Melbourne’s streets” – did not interview any Sudanese-Australians, nor any Vietnamese-Australians who were willing to be named.

But it did interview Neil Erikson, a far-right criminal who has convictions for racial vilification and stalking, and local grandmother Linda Boyd, who said she was afraid to go out at night.

In a confrontational interview with Erikson, reporter Reid Butler described him as “100% racist”, but the program did not disclose any of Erikson’s convictions.

The “race war” quote came from Boyd, and not from any representatives of the two communities.

Kevin Tran, a Victorian vice-president of the Vietnamese Community in Australia (VCA), said African-Australians were being unfairly treated by the media in the same way Vietnamese communities were 20 years ago.

Nyadol Nyuon, an African-Australian lawyer, said the report was “not just irresponsible – it is dangerous”.

Another VCA member, Celia Tran, agreed. “Shame on A Current Affair … You’re the ones who cause the most danger to our communities,” she wrote on Twitter.

What 'race war'? Shame on @ACurrentAffair9 for your 'story' btwn my community & the #Sudanese. We stand together against violence & racism.These incidences were NOT race related. You're the ones who cause the most danger to our communities. STOP giving voice to hatred & violence. pic.twitter.com/saQlyTLwCW — Celia Tran (@Celiatrantweets) January 2, 2019

The segment, broadcast on New Year’s Eve, focused on violence in the western Melbourne suburb of St Albans and rising “racial tensions”.

Footage obtained by the program showed two men – identified by the reporter as Sudanese-Australian – throwing chairs at a man at a cafe on Alfrieda Street.

Butler then interviewed a man whose face was completely hidden in darkness, who claimed to be a Vietnamese-Australian, calling on people to “mass protest” crime by African-Australians.

Vietnamese people “may band together and hurt any African youths in their way”, he said.

But the VCA said the incident on Alfrieda Street was not “race-related” and the report was incorrect.

“These incidents are not race-related and members of the Vietnamese community have not been singled out,” the group’s Victorian president, Viv Nguyen, said.

Kevin Tran said A Current Affair did not contact any community leaders before the broadcast.

Nyuon said the report downplayed the role of white supremacist organisations by focusing on anonymous Vietnamese residents.

“It is a much easier angle to tell,” she said. “By making it a Vietnamese and Sudanese thing, you can’t say it’s racist because they are both minorities. But what we know has really been building up is white supremacists threatening violence.”

The program did interview Erikson, who is a member of the far-right United Patriots Front, and who in 2015 pleaded guilty to stalking a Melbourne rabbi.

“You guys are racists, 100% racists,” Butler tells them. “How do you respond to that?”

“We grew here, you flew here,” Erikson says. He then accuses African-Australian community leaders of “cuddling these criminals”.

"We must mass protest right now, and band together and hurt any African youths in our way."



The FULL bombshell interview TONIGHT at 7.00pm. #9ACA https://t.co/7AIhUh2cM4 — A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) December 31, 2018

Nyuon said it made no sense to interview Erikson. “I am so frustrated on one end, and it makes me want to laugh on the other,” she said.

“It is so hypocritical. Neil Erikson has an extensive criminal record and he is being invited to speak about the criminality of certain groups of people. How can someone with an extensive criminal record condemn the criminality of another community?”

A spokesman for A Current Affair said Erikson was interviewed because he was an example of someone “inflaming the situation” of racial tension.

“Neil Erikson was included in the story because the community was highly critical of the video he posted,” the spokesman said. “It was our intention to confront him about antagonising young people of African appearance and his views, which was conveyed in the story.”

Kevin Tran said “there are some issues” in St Albans, but Vietnamese and Sudanese communities were working together and with local police.

“I don’t believe it was a very responsible or a very informed piece,” he said. “As we know, every story has two sides. I think responsible journalism would have incorporated statements from the leaders of the community.

“I do believe the African community is being unfairly treated in the media. To isolate the Sudanese community, and say anyone with dark skin is in a gang … that happened to the Vietnamese community too. Ten or 20 years ago, we were the ‘Asian gangs’.

“We very much understand the difficulties of being in a newly arrived community. I have no doubts that Sudanese and African communities can contribute to Australia and its multicultural fabric.”

A Current Affair said the show approached members of the Sudanese-Australian community for comment, but they declined to be involved.

The spokesman did not say whether they approached Vietnamese community leaders, but said the “masked teenager” reflected the views of people in St Albans.

“It was the opinion of the ‘masked person’ that his local community was extremely concerned by the events in St Albans. These views were echoed by others we spoke to both on and off-camera in the St Albans community,” he said.