Since announcing himself as a mayoral candidate in December, Campbelltown City councillor Yassir Ajrish has been subject to extensive racial abuse on social media, with thousands of comments being left on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram posts from users around Australia.

Ajrish, a man of Muslim faith, has been a council member since 2022, where he was elected as a member for the Hectorville Ward. But he said the racist comments first appeared late last year when he started posting reels for his campaign.

Some of the comments criticised the councillor for wearing an Akubra hat in his videos, and others made references to deportations, Sharia Law, and terrorism.

Ajrish has addressed the growing number of racial comments on his various social media accounts.

“I won’t pretend that it hasn’t been disappointing to see some of these comments, because I believe our community is much better than that,” Ajrish told InDaily.

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“What you see in terms of comments is a drop in the ocean of the big comments that were left on there. I do not allow and I do not support any form of racism or hate and I’ve been actively speaking against it. Any personal attacks on other commenters we try to remove.

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“We have people that are trying to monitor this but it’s been tremendously difficult because the sheer amount of responses has been really significant.”

He said that the comments being left on his accounts appeared to be written from accounts from all across the country.

“These comments are doing nothing except to deter away from our policies, and we’re not going to play that game of race and religion and so on,” Ajrish said.

“But I didn’t want to pretend that those things do not exist and I gave people an opportunity to ask other questions that are genuine about the campaign.

“My option was, do I just completely block out all commenting so no one is allowed to comment on anything and really come from an authoritarian, autocratic point of view, or allow people to actually still engage.”

Ajrish said his door-knocking campaign in the Campbelltown community had been completely different to the online response.

“The response and the conversations that I’ve had with people on the ground are really heartwarming, because it shows what the Australian values are. It’s about community, unity and being welcoming in this country,” he said.

But Campbelltown City Council Mayor Jill Whittaker criticised Ajrish over the comments saying he was breaching the council’s social media policy by not deleting and moderating the comments.

Whittaker is also standing for Mayor in the upcoming elections in November.

“Campbelltown has the second-highest multicultural population in metropolitan Adelaide, and these comments are having a significant impact on our community,” Whittaker told InDaily.

“Many comments are not made by or are reflective of our community, which is a place of harmony where we all get along. Council’s vision is to create a safe community, and the disrespectful remarks make residents uneasy and feel less safe in our community.”

A Campbelltown City Council spokesperson said the council does not condone any form of racism, and “are proud of our multicultural community”.

“The mayor is concerned about the harm these comments are having on everyone, and general readers.  She has been contacted by local community members who are upset about the conversations on councillor Ajrish’s social media pages,” she said.

“Our Social Media Policy clearly states that elected members are personally responsible for what third parties say on their page.

“We are in communication with councillor Ajrish to ensure he appropriately moderates his page to minimise the impact on our community. This is his own social media account and therefore not within our control.”