A group of pro-Palestine Labor members have voiced their “distress and disgust” at the police response to protests over Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit to Sydney, accusing the NSW government of overseeing a “terrible erosion of civil liberties” in its crackdown on public demonstrations.
In a letter to NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, the Labor Friends of Palestine group – an internal assembly of rank-and-file ALP members – has demanded an independent investigation of the actions of NSW police at Monday’s rally. Eyewitness accounts and mobile phone footage captured officers pepper spraying demonstrators, punching a man with his hands up, and forcibly dragging a group of Muslim men kneeling in prayer.
“We are disappointed that it is a Labor government – a government we worked to elect – that has presided over the terrible erosion of civil liberties in NSW and we are deeply distressed that it is a Labor government that enabled the violence we saw against protesters at Town Hall last night,” the letter, signed by ordinary Labor members, reads.
NSW police on Tuesday charged nine people after the protest, with offences including assaulting police, assault, hindering police and behaving in an offensive manner. Police had previously said 27 people were arrested. An additional six people will be issued with court attendance notices for refusing or failing to comply with directions.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, defended the actions of police, claiming the protesters created an “impossible situation” as officers responded to the visit of Herzog at a major Jewish community event on the other side of the CBD. Minns said the actions of police would be investigated, including analysis of body-worn camera footage, but said critics should consider the “full context” of videos that went viral online, rather than making a judgment based on a “15 second social media clip”.
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Catley said in a press conference that police had done a “good job under incredibly difficult circumstances”, claiming officers had told her the crowd had been more aggressive than they had encountered before.
Stephen Lawrence, a NSW Labor MP, questioned the police tactics and said he’d witnessed violence at the rally.
In the letter to Catley, the Labor Friends of Palestine group said some of its members were at the protest, and witnessed what they called “numerous examples of police harassment and violence”, including police pushing and shoving protesters, people being thrown to the ground, and a man being pepper sprayed while held down.
“We write to you to express our distress and disgust at the police harassment and violence we experienced and witnessed at last night’s Town Hall protest,” the letter said.
“We must also raise our deep distress at witnessing Muslim comrades being assaulted whilst praying. The police behaviour in this instance was completely unwarranted and utterly reprehensible.
“We call on you to initiate a thorough independent investigation into NSW police behaviour before, during and after the Town Hall protest. We also urge you to work with police and civil society representatives to develop a more progressive approach to the policing of protest to ensure that the right to political expression is protected and we never see another protest like the one we experienced yesterday.”
Herzog will visit Canberra on Wednesday, for meetings with the governor general, Sam Mostyn, and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. In parliament on Tuesday, Albanese urged calm and said while there was a place for demonstrations, he called for them to be peaceful.
“I’ve consistently said that every life matters, whether Israeli or Palestinian and the violence that we saw last night was devastating. All Australians would have found those scenes very confronting,” Albanese said.
Specifically mentioning the incident around the group in prayer, Albanese said many people would “want to know all of the circumstances around that”, but added: “I will allow the police to do their job”.
The federal Islamophobia envoy, Aftab Malik, said on social media that police had appeared “to use excessive and unprovoked force against Muslims peacefully praying”, describing police actions as “unprovoked and unacceptable” and calling on Minns and police to apologise.