Labor backbench and Greens MPs say the police response to a protest against the Israeli president’s visit on Monday evening was “grossly inappropriate” – but New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has defended police actions, saying they were “put in an impossible position”.
State Greens MP Abigail Boyd alleged that she was “targeted and assaulted” by police during the rally, causing injuries to her wrist and chin.
“I feel quite naïve, but I didn’t know police could do this in our state,” she told ABC Radio on Tuesday morning. “I’m absolutely shocked.”
NSW Police pepper-sprayed demonstrators at a Sydney rally protesting the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the Town Hall. They arrested 27 people and said 10 officers were attacked, although none of the attacks were serious.
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Minns has also defended the police response as well as controversial protest restrictions, which one member of his government said had created a “pressure cooker” situation.
He told Channel Nine’s Today program on Tuesday morning that police were “put in an impossible position last night” when protesters breached a protest ban preventing them from marching to the NSW Parliament following the Bondi attack. Protests continued despite a NSW Supreme Court case in which the Palestine Action Group failed to overturn additional sweeping powers handed to the police for the duration of Herzog’s visit.
Minns said that police had “made every effort to avoid that confrontation, starting last week when they urged protest organizers to keep it in Hyde Park, where it was safe and a march could take place”.
“What we can say today, what we couldn’t say yesterday, is that there were 7,000 Jewish mourners in the same city at the same time, and the police had to keep those two groups apart.”
The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, said he was “devastated” by the scenes, but said they had “undermined” the protesters’ cause and that the Israeli president’s visit was appropriate.
“People should be able to express their views peacefully, but the police were very clear about the routes they needed people to take to march, to go a particular route, and to make sure it was done peacefully,” he told Triple M Hobart.
Palestine Action Group organizer Josh Lees said Monday night’s events were the worst he had attended several pro-Palestine events in recent years. He told ABC Radio Sydney that if police had facilitated the peaceful march, which “we have always called for”, “all of this could have been avoided”.
The Palestine Action Group plans to hold another event at a NSW Police station in Surry Hills on Tuesday evening, demanding the dropping of all charges against protesters on Monday and accountability for the behavior of officers.
Lees said, “We could have marched (to Parliament) and then dispersed.” “Instead, the police confined people to the area outside the Town Hall and then charged at them repeatedly. This is the worst case I have seen, where the police were completely out of control.
“They just kept charging, pepper spraying everyone. The people who were pepper sprayed, who were on the ground, were trampled by the police.”
An incident captured on footage from the scene showed several people kneeling to pray, before some were dragged away by police. Asked about the video Tuesday, Minns rejected the idea that it showed police were disproportionately focusing on the Muslim community.
“Context is incredibly important, and the context here was in the midst of a riotous behavior,” he said. “Now I am not saying that those who were involved in prayers were behaving like this, but the police faced a difficult situation when they asked people to vacate the area.”
NSW Greens MP and party justice spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said she would refer the “grossly inappropriate” police actions to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, which she alleged included the police horse charge, “unprovoked assault and serious police violence”.
“I saw with my own eyes something I hoped I would never see, but the video footage spreading on social media is all the proof any of us need to see NSW being transformed into a police state.”
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna strongly defended the police actions, saying that officers had shown restraint against protesters for more than an hour before the clashes began.
“Every police officer has to justify his or her actions, there’s no doubt about that,” McKenna told ABC Radio Sydney. “But what I will say is that what happened last night was one of the most uncertain, volatile situations that I have seen… The level of aggression and violence by the crowd was palpable.”
He was asked about video footage showing officers punching a man, and video of people praying. McKenna said people should not take “snippets” of the footage out of context.
“If his decisions were right, wrong or otherwise, I’m not going to sit here and judge him this morning because I saw who he faced last night,” he said.
Federal Social Services Minister and Sydney MP Tanya Plibersek said videos shared on social media of the protests were “very worrying”.
“I hope they will be investigated,” he told the ABC. Plibersek said protesters “certainly” had the right to protest, but they should have followed police advice not to march to the NSW Parliament.
Labor NSW upper house member Stephen Lawrence, one of four backbench government MPs who supported or attended the rally, said the state should have facilitated peaceful protests.
He was among those who questioned the link between the Bondi attack and pro-Palestine protests after the public gathering ban declaration was extended this month and “major incident” powers were unsuccessfully challenged in the Supreme Court.
“We have removed the ability to authorize these types of marches and protests,” he said. “It was a very inevitable consequence of that.
“I don’t like to be right about this kind of thing but it has been said repeatedly in Parliament and in various places, we are basically creating a pressure cooker and we saw it last night.”
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