By Pip Hinman in Gadigal Country/Sydney
NSW Premier Chris Minns is sounding even more defensive after videos of NSW police violence towards peaceful protesters in Australia went viral — including attacks on Muslims praying in Sydney’s Town Hall Square after the rally on Monday.
His “primary concern”, he told ABC TV, was to prevent the gathered protesters opposing war criminal Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit from finding out that Herzog was in the city — around the corner, at the International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour.
“We can reveal this morning that we had 700 Jewish mourners in the city at the same time, and at the same location, and police had to keep them separate from protesters; if those police lines were breached, it would have been far, far worse,” Minns said.
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The fact that Herzog was nearby was hardly a secret. Everyone knew, given the number of barricades and no-go zones that had been established over the previous few days.
We also knew Herzog was in Bondi and no public protest had been planned for that.
Minns’ comments were dishonest and cruel justifications for police violence.
Town Hall Square, the assembly point, was already starting to fill by 4.30pm, an hour before the protest was due to start. By 5.30pm, it was jam packed, including with many Jewish Australians and Arab Australians.
First Nations speakers
The programme included First Nations speakers, former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, NSW Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi and Labor MP Sarah Kaine (who was heckled because of federal and state Labor governments’ support for genocidal Israel).
The speeches focused on Herzog, why we oppose closer relations with Israel and Minns’ draconian new anti-protest laws, which give police new powers.
The atmosphere at the beginning was peaceful — except for the 3000 police that surrounded Town Hall Square, including snipers, and stretched across CBD blocks.
The police “kettled” the rally — a tactic designed to intimidate and make it easier to unleash force. Without warning, they started to tear-gas people who were kettled — and therefore with no escape route.
Older and young people alike were crushed by the police kettling and pushing, leaving some in agony unable to breathe and others on the ground covered in blood.
Minns justified this approach, saying “most protesters had dispersed . . . but a small number didn’t”.
That is not true.
Repeatedly tear-gassed
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were trying to disperse when the tear-gas order was given. People were tear-gassed repeatedly, when they were already on the ground. I, along with hundreds of others, was gassed with no escape route to move away.
Minns has repeatedly implied that protesters wanted to wreak havoc with Jewish mourners — without a shred of evidence.
No speaker asked the large crowd to do this; at no stage was violence suggested.
Anti-Herzog protesters may not agree with those welcoming Herzog, but our protest was against war criminal Herzog, the genocidal state he represents and Minns’ anti-freedom of speech and assembly laws.
If Minns and PM Anthony Albanese truly had Jewish Australians in mind after the Bondi terrorist attack, they would know that Jews are not one homogenous whole in their political views on Israel.
Yet the governments decided to go with the Zionists’ demands to invite Herzog and align themselves to the genocidal state of Israel.
Among the 30,000 people who felt they had to come to this protest were anti-Zionist Jewish Australians, who say Minns and Albanese do not speak for them.
Set up to be ‘tinderbox’
Minns said the “circumstances were a tinderbox”. That’s only because he, calculatedly, set it up to be.
His actions provoked hate and division and further tore apart social cohesion. How else do you explain police attacking a group of Muslims praying? He would not stand for Jews or Christians being attacked in the same way.
Minns’ ridiculous appeal to look beyond the viral social media clips of police violence and “bind up the wounds” shows he has completely lost the plot.
Minns should resign. He is not fit for the job and needs to be held to account.
Pip Hinman is a long-time anti-war activist and member of the Socialist Alliance. This article was first published by Green-Left and is republished here with permission.
