NSW Police is considering authorising the use of “extraordinary” powers to search and identify protesters ahead of a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney planned for Sunday.
Acting Commissioner Dave Hudson said an event by the Palestinian Action Group Sydney was deemed unauthorised this week due to a form not being submitted within the required time frame.
It followed a protest in front of Sydney Opera House earlier this week where racial epithets were chanted by some attendees.
On Monday night hundreds of people attended a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Sydney Opera House, while the landmark was lit in colours of the Israeli flag.
At the protest flares were lit by some in the crowd and thrown onto the forecourt steps, where rows of police officers were monitoring the situation.
Some protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans like “f… the Jews”, “free Palestine” and “shame Israel”.
No arrests were made and no-one was reported to have been injured.
Acting Commissioner Hudson on Friday said if the powers were used, police would be able to search attendees without reasonable cause and request identification, where failure to provide relevant documents would be deemed an offence.
The wider powers were introduced after the 2005 Cronulla riots and have been used “intermittently” since, the acting commissioner said.
“The powers are extensive, when the authority is granted all those powers will be available to us, however, we would not be looking to exercise the full suite of powers,” Acting Commissioner Hudson said.
“Only the ones bespoke to the situation we’re currently in, and we think those additional powers are required to appropriately and safely manage what is to occur on Sunday.”
He warned protesters planning to attend not to go to the planned gathering, but said police are expecting between 300 and 400 people at the moment.
“We don’t prohibit anyone from the right to protest but there are peaceful manners in which that could happen,” Acting Commissioner Hudson said.
“People do have a right to protest, but there are responsibilities with that.”
Fuck off. Nazis can throw salutes and call for the extermination of trans people next to LNP members and that’s fine. but some antisemites hang out with a protest about an ongoing and brutual occupation rapidly escalating to genocide and suddenly it’s not OK?
Suddenly all your creepy surveillance powers are only good for use against climate protesters and you can’t handle a tiny minority of racists trying to coopt a peaceful cause?
Ugh.
If NSW Police are lucky there might be some children to strip search at the rally. Bunch of stand-up folk.
It’s such a ridiculous justification. If they were using the threat of terrorism as a justification then that would make some sense at least.
British and German Baby boomers are the worst.
The reason outlined is pretty clear - the organisers of this rally are refusing to work with police to make sure the protest is run peacefully. The police clearly said they need more time to plan their side of the protest, and a police presence is absolutely required for an issue as emotionally charged as this one.
Why didn’t they just delay the protest by a few more days? Refusing to do so is a massive red flag - police almost certainly won’t be able to keep things under control. It’s going to get ugly.
Stop spreading FUD. It will only get ugly if the police decide to make it ugly. The organisers have made it clear it’s a peaceful protest. All the other protests across Australia this past week have been peaceful. The hate speech by a very small minority at the first Sydney rally was shut down by protesters and the protest organisers themselves - not by the police, the media or bandwagoning politicians.
I don’t think you understand how protest works. It’s not really protest is the police tell you when and where, it’s farce.
Hi all, I’ve seen a few posts on other instances about the latest Israel/Palestine flair-up turn into mini wars. Both sides have wide support on the fediverse, so you are very likely to encounter people you disagree with in any post that even references it.
If you are going to engage, please keep it civil. Opinions and genuine discorse are welcome, individual attacks on users are not. Understand that we don’t tolerate personal attacks at aussie.zone. There are other places in the fediverse if you feel like fighting and being nasty.
To repeat a post from a couple of days ago, from the organisers:
Palestine Action Group statement on last night’s protest:
On 9 October 2023, Palestine Action Group organised a successful rally in support of Palestine, calling for the end of the occupation and for Australia to cut ties to Israel. Thousands on thousands of diverse attendees marched to the Opera House and demonstrated our opposition to Australia’s support to the State of Israel, a genocidal apartheid regime which has waged war on Palestinians for over 75 years.
Today, we have woken up to the Premier of NSW, the Prime-Minister, the Foreign Affairs Minister and Independent MP, Allegra Spender condemning our protests and questioning why it went ahead. Let us affirm, we have the right to demonstrate. At a conjuncture where anti-protest laws widen to target anyone who opposes the colonial and capitalist structures of this state from First Nations movements to the Climate Justice movement, the states attack on Pro-Palestinian protestors is no different. Australia as a colonial and imperialist entity will always support Israel and the state is frightened by people in their masses showing that we oppose imperialism and colonialism. At a time where the people of Palestine resist over 75 years of war and massacres and Israel declares intent to commit genocide against the people of Gaza, we will demonstrate, we will continue to demonstrate and we will show this state that we oppose apartheid, we oppose settler-colonialism and we oppose genocide.
Despite a very successful and peaceful rally, the media has reported on a tiny fringe (we estimate less than 20 people) of vile antisemitic attendees who showed up to the opera house for an event unrelated to the demonstration we organised. Media reports and videos circulating show young boys, mostly in their teens chanting “fuck the Jews”. From our observations this occurred for less than one minute and was not an ongoing chant. They were quickly condemned for their chants and asked to leave. Long-standing Palestinian organisers and activists, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim elders attending the protest were disgusted and deplored by the action. This is not what our movement stands for. We oppose Zionism, an ideology distinct from Judaism. We oppose Israel, a racist state which has waged genocide on Palestinians. We are an anti-racist and anti-colonial movement and we refuse to fight racism with racism.
PAG has a long-standing history of working with Jewish activists and organisers who oppose Zionism, from Tzedek to Jews against the occupation, we share anti racist and anti colonial values with our anti-Zionist Jewish siblings. We thank them for their ongoing solidarity, including the contingent who attended this very rally. We’ve checked in with as many of those Jewish people in the contingent as we know to ensure they are feeling safe and okay.
For over a decade we have organised peaceful Palestinian rallies and we have mobilised the Australian community and we will continue to mobilise. If you are an antisemite, you are not welcome at our rallies and are not a part of our movement. As we did today, we will ask you to leave and we will continue to do this. We thank the 99.9% who have continued to show up for Palestine, who have continued to help keep our rallies peaceful and promote anti-racist and anti-colonial values.
We will be back on the streets at 1pm, Sunday 15 October 2023, at Town Hall to continue to protest both attacks on Palestinian resistance and Israel’s declaration of genocide on Palestinians. We will not bow to pressure from parliamentarians to end our mobilisations. We will demonstrate until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea!
Free Palestine and f*ck racism.
Despite a very successful and peaceful rally, the media has reported on a tiny fringe (we estimate less than 20 people) of vile antisemitic attendees who showed up to the opera house for an event unrelated to the demonstration we organised.
Sorry, but the fact there were “vile antisemitic attendees” means it was not a “successful and peaceful” rally. It’s a miracle nobody was injured and it could easily have been a catastrophe.
It’s not enough to tell those people they are not welcome at the rally. It’s not enough to “ask them to leave”. They need to be blocked from taking part and by force if necessary… the organisers don’t need to be directly involved in that work, but they do need to collaborate with police.
It was indeed a peaceful rally, In fact, so peaceful that when a small minority resorted to hate speech their fellow protesters and the protest organisers were able to dissuade them of their behaviour peacefully. No violence, no cops.
Do you often refer to people you oppose politically as ‘these people’ or are you so far down the racist rabbit hole you can’t recognise you’re own hate and hypocrisy?
Do you often refer to people you oppose politically as ‘these people’
I don’t oppose them politically, I oppose them because they are antisemitic. And it has nothing to do with race. There are plenty of people of my own race (german, by the way) who are even worse.
Being antisemitic is not a political position. Just so we are perfectly clear, anyone who commits antisemitic acts is a criminal in Australia. I fully support the right to protest and I’d be happy to sit down and have a conversation over a meal with most of the people at the protest and would gladly do what I can to help them. My own grandfather has described what it was like when he was a teenager and all his relatives and friends were killed in a single night of death and destruction when his home city was bombed, and my heart goes out to the people going through that now and friends and families of those people. But no, I won’t tolerate antisemitism.
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Did you read the article? They clearly say they have a right to protest as long as it’s done peacefully
He warned protesters planning to attend not to go to the planned gathering
Yeah sure sounds like it.
Can we be pro Palestinian people but anti Hamas and anti violence?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyUom4jSw1u/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== (a reel posted by 9 news Sydney) sad how it’s only alright to mourn tragedies on one side and the stark differences in the depiction of the 2 sides.
Quite an international crackdown on any criticism of israel.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
NSW Police is considering authorising the use of “extraordinary” powers to search and identify protesters ahead of a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney planned for Sunday.
Acting Commissioner Dave Hudson said an event by the Palestinian Action Group Sydney was deemed unauthorised this week due to a form not being submitted within the required time frame.
It followed a protest in front of Sydney Opera House earlier this week where racial epithets were chanted by some attendees.
On Monday night hundreds of people attended a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Sydney Opera House, while the landmark was lit in colours of the Israeli flag.
At the protest flares were lit by some in the crowd and thrown onto the forecourt steps, where rows of police officers were monitoring the situation.
Acting Commissioner Hudson on Friday said if the powers were used, police would be able to search attendees without reasonable cause and request identification, where failure to provide relevant documents would be deemed an offence.
The original article contains 327 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
As much as I do believe in freedom to protest, the measures are completely justified, especially with the ‘call to jihad’ thats come out. This isnt a situation where one can expect protests to be peaceful
They won’t be violent fuck off lol
Australian police need to back the fuck down and accept that Australian’s have the right to peaceful protest, or they’ll get protests without the peace.
This especially goes for their actions against climate activists.
