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.”
To repeat a post from a couple of days ago, from the organisers:
https://www.facebook.com/syd.bmbc/posts/pfbid02DQP8J4JCNr42JcbT5cpiWkGPircjjj4iUU9v4xftU37xcFEwXmfjFuH5zGztuEwhl
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?
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.