Company defends use of signs intended to help Arabic-speaking customers, but takes them down in one store after threats to staff

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Optus has removed signs written in Arabic from a Sydney storefront after threats from angry store patrons and complaints it was “inappropriate” after the Paris attacks.

The telecommunications company hit back at customers offended by the signs but removed them from a store in the Casula shopping centre in south-west Sydney saying it had to put the safety of staff first.

The signs inform people there are staff in the store who speak Arabic.

People took to Facebook to criticise Optus over the Arabic signage, including Chris Cahill who wrote that the sign was in “poor taste” given the terrorist attacks in Paris over the weekend.

“Your advertisement people would be looking for new jobs if I was running the show!” he wrote.

Optus responded to the post by saying that it celebrated multiculturalism and diversity.

“Hey Chris – these signs are to let our customers, who may not speak English as their first language in the area, know that we can help them in their native tongue,” the post read.

“We also have posters in Vietnamese and Chinese. What happened on the weekend was a tragedy. The poster is in a language that is used by hundreds of millions of people.”

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Another customer, Natalie Charters, asked why Optus was advertising “in middle eastern language and not English”.

“This is an outrage, this is Australia not Syria,” she wrote.

Optus replied; “Just like advertising in Italian at Italian restaurants in my neighbourhood at Carlton, or Vietnamese at a Phở restaurant in the suburbs; we welcome all of our customers, and where we can, we love to be able to assist customers in their native language”.

However, an Optus spokeswoman told Guardian Australia that the Arabic signs had since been removed from the Casula store because of threats made towards staff. She would not detail the nature of those threats.

“There are a number of stores still carrying the Arabic signage but for the safety and security of staff and customers at these stores we won’t be revealing exact locations,” she said.

“However, yesterday following a threat to our store staff, we made the decision to remove some materials that were published in Arabic. The safety and security of our staff is paramount.”

The company remained committed to promoting multiculturalism, she said, and would continue to actively promote the bi-lingual skills of front line staff. Despite some signs being removed, Optus continued to defend the advertisements on its Facebook page.

A Facebook posts from an Optus customer in Australia expressing anger that signs written in Arabic were placed in one of its Australian stores. The signs alerted customers to the fact that some Optus staff members could speak Arabic. Photograph: Facebook

“This is so wrong, may have to rethink who my mobile carried [sic] is,” Sandra Giles wrote of the signs on the Optus Facebook page.

She received the following reply from Optus; “We live in a diverse and multicultural country and appreciate that everyone may not know English as their first language. You’ll start to see more ads like this in many languages.”

Optus was forced to explain to another customer, Linda Ashenden, that Islam was not a country.

“This is Australia not islam,” Ashenden wrote. “As I said Australia is Australia not Islam.”

Optus explained; “Hi Linda, thanks for your feedback. Australia is a country while Islam is a religion. The language used on the sign was Arabic which is also spoken by a number of non-Muslim countries”.

The criticism of the signs was reported to the Islamophobia Register Australia, a reporting and discussion forum for anti-Muslim sentiments.