THE representative of a group which has applied to build a cemetery in Bringelly says a vicious vandalism attack on the block at the weekend has upset him, but it won't scare him off.
Pasa Unsal, president of the NSW United Turkish Islamic Centre, which has lodged an application for a 6000-plot cemetery for the 10-hectare site at 31 Greendale Road, said the attack, which he believes happened on Saturday, was "very severe".
It is not the first time that the property has been attacked. Mr Unsal said the house had been targeted in recent months.
"The roof tiles have been smashed and the ceiling inside of the house has been damaged," Mr Unsal said.
"Every single wall and window has had paint thrown at it and graffiti written on it and everything has been damaged.
"A lot of is very intimidating, saying things like 'no mosque' and 'go back to Bankstown' and 'no Arabs'.
"So it's obviously racially and religiously motivated and that's not acceptable.
"The police are investigating now."
Mr Unsal said the vandals were wrong on a lot of points, because his organisation was not planning on building a mosque and Turkish people are not Arabs.
"We're not going to be scared off by this.
"We're running out of cemetery space in Sydney. We need to create more cemeteries and that's what we're doing, so we know we're in the right."
Another cemetery application, for a block in Rossmore, was recently rejected by Liverpool Council.
An application for a third larger cemetery also on Greendale Road, but in Greendale, is still being processed by the council and there are two more proposals to be voted on: a crematorium for Greendale and a meditation centre for Bringelly.
Local residents have been campaigning against the proposals for more than a year.
Macarthur MP Russell Matheson said he would support the residents in their campaign to oppose the proposed cemeteries because he did not think they were right for the area.
"The problems I see with these applications is the environmental and traffic problems that they could cause," Mr Matheson said.
"Both state and federal governments need to get involved in this and plan for the future development of cemeteries.
"We need to consult with all denominations and plan where the future cemeteries will be; we can't force councils to deal with this."
Mr Unsal said he would increase security at the site by putting in cameras and would even pay security guards if it was necessary.
Council staff asked the applicant to submit more information about the site for consideration by the end of this week. Mr Unsal said is was being prepared.
One resident opposed to the cemetery application, who did not wish to be named, said the majority of residents would oppose such vandalism.
She said the people, who have formed the Rural Residents Rights Inc group to oppose the cemetery and other developments in the area, did not think the vandalism was acceptable.
"We would never condone anything like this," she said.
John Roy, of the rural residents group, said he had no idea who would do such a thing.
"We're opposing this through the proper channels," he said. "We would never support anything like that."
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