Pro-Palestine protesters defiant as crackdown looms
Undeterred by the Victorian government's promises to bring in stronger measures to clamp down on the weekly protests, hundreds again turned out in force on Sunday to march through a chilly Melbourne city centre.
Premier Jacinta Allan has made it clear her government is actively planning ways to curb "odious" rallies, including enforcing strengthened anti-vilification laws, overseeing an anti-hate task force and talk of introducing a protest permit system.
But rally emcee Hajar Riad said demonstrators would continue to gather as they had "every single Sunday for 645 days".
"We won't stop," she told the crowd.
Following in the footsteps of controversial laws introduced in NSW, the Victorian government is drafting legislation to ban protests outside places of worship.
It also plans to ban demonstrators from wearing face coverings and could consider introducing further measures in the coming months.
Ms Riad took aim at the Victorian government's latest crackdown.
"Our government is trying to criminalise each and every single one of us," she said.
Free Palestine Melbourne protests, together with separate groups across the country, are demanding Australia impose sanctions on Israel due to its actions in Gaza following Hamas's deadly attack in October 2023.
But protest participants have come under fire for the rallying cry "death to the IDF", a reference to the Israel Defence Forces.
Federal opposition frontbencher and Liberal senator James Patterson called for the chant to be examined as potential incitement to violence, while Ms Allan said it was fair to ask why the slogan should be tolerated at protests.
Organisers led the crowd in the chant on Sunday, adding it was "a bit controversial, apparently".
One protester displayed a sign that read: "Death 2 the IDF, not just a chant but a prayer".
A recent spate of attacks on Melbourne's Jewish community, including the firebombing of an east Melbourne synagogue and the storming of an Israeli restaurant, prompted the government to set up a task force to target hate crimes.
But organisers stressed they were not anti-Semitic and they "love our Jewish brothers and sisters".
Regular protest attendee Stephanie Wong said the government was rushing through legal changes and conflating acts of violence with peaceful protest.
"The people who meet peacefully to demonstrate each week aren't the same people who launch violent attacks," she told AAP.
"We shouldn't have our rights and freedom of speech taken away because a very small group of people commit violence."
The Victorian anti-hate task force met for the first time on Tuesday.
The federal Labor government has also promised more action to protect Jewish Australians after the release of its anti-Semitism envoy's recommendations.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Segal's report lays a trap for Albanese. How he responds will have profound implications
In December 2024, when the ABC was confronted with the relentless lobbying by some members of a WhatsApp group calling itself Lawyers for Israel and demanding the sacking of its broadcaster, Antoinette Lattouf, it had a clear choice. It could have responded by rejecting their demands to illegally sack Lattouf. Instead, as Justice Darryl Rangiah of the Federal Court of Australia recently found, the ABC capitulated and embarked on a $2 million campaign to defend the indefensible. In its ruling, the court made clear that sacking an employee who expressed criticisms of the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians was illegal because Australian laws protected our right to express political opinion. Last week, antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal walked into a press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and laid a similar trap for the government. Her 16-page report contained recommendations that undermine the rule of law by seeking to bypass the institutions which protect our democracy: the parliament, the courts, tribunals and the Australian Human Rights Commission. All forms of racism and antisemitism are already unlawful in Australia, and hate speech laws have been toughened in response to an increase in antisemitic incidents in the last year. Loading When the issue has been put to the test, existing laws have worked, too. A court found this month that a Sydney Muslim cleric's lectures were unlawful because they were 'fundamentally racist and antisemitic'. The court also correctly determined that 'political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature, criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity' and therefore was not antisemitic or unlawful. One of the key recommendations in Segal's report is that all levels of government, institutions and 'regulatory bodies' adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's controversial definition of antisemitism. In part, this definition states that it is antisemitic to target the state of Israel and/or claim the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour. Adopting the IHRA definition would render the opinions of many protesters in Israel as antisemitic, let alone those here in Australia. It is completely at odds with the Federal Court's recent finding and our existing anti-discrimination laws.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Segal's report lays a trap for Albanese. How he responds will have profound implications
In December 2024, when the ABC was confronted with the relentless lobbying by some members of a WhatsApp group calling itself Lawyers for Israel and demanding the sacking of its broadcaster, Antoinette Lattouf, it had a clear choice. It could have responded by rejecting their demands to illegally sack Lattouf. Instead, as Justice Darryl Rangiah of the Federal Court of Australia recently found, the ABC capitulated and embarked on a $2 million campaign to defend the indefensible. In its ruling, the court made clear that sacking an employee who expressed criticisms of the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians was illegal because Australian laws protected our right to express political opinion. Last week, antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal walked into a press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and laid a similar trap for the government. Her 16-page report contained recommendations that undermine the rule of law by seeking to bypass the institutions which protect our democracy: the parliament, the courts, tribunals and the Australian Human Rights Commission. All forms of racism and antisemitism are already unlawful in Australia, and hate speech laws have been toughened in response to an increase in antisemitic incidents in the last year. Loading When the issue has been put to the test, existing laws have worked, too. A court found this month that a Sydney Muslim cleric's lectures were unlawful because they were 'fundamentally racist and antisemitic'. The court also correctly determined that 'political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature, criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity' and therefore was not antisemitic or unlawful. One of the key recommendations in Segal's report is that all levels of government, institutions and 'regulatory bodies' adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's controversial definition of antisemitism. In part, this definition states that it is antisemitic to target the state of Israel and/or claim the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour. Adopting the IHRA definition would render the opinions of many protesters in Israel as antisemitic, let alone those here in Australia. It is completely at odds with the Federal Court's recent finding and our existing anti-discrimination laws.
Sydney Morning Herald
4 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
BBC battles to contain MasterChef UK scandal as regulator flags Gaza doco probe
London: Britain's media regulator said on Monday it will investigate a BBC documentary about children's lives in Gaza, after a review concluded that the narrator's father has Hamas links and the program therefore breached editorial guidelines on accuracy. The announcement marked a dark day for the broadcaster, as it came at the same time as a report into allegations against MasterChef UK host Gregg Wallace found that dozens of misconduct allegations made against him were upheld. The law firm-led report said 45 out of the 83 allegations made against Wallace during his time on the show between 2005 and 2018 were substantiated. Most related to 'inappropriate sexual language and humour', with a smaller number of allegations about Wallace 'being in a state of undress' and one incident of unwelcome physical contact. The broadcaster removed the program, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, from its streaming service in February after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture. Ofcom, the media regulator, said that it was launching an investigation under rules that state factual programs must not materially mislead the audience. Loading That came after a review by the broadcaster found that the independent production company that made the program didn't share the background information regarding the narrator's father with the BBC. It said that the production company, Hoyo Films, bears most responsibility for the failure, though it didn't 'intentionally' mislead the BBC. The review, conducted by the corporation's director of editorial complaints, found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including impartiality. There was no evidence of 'outside interests' impacting on the program, it said.
