Hannah Thomas warned to ‘prepare for worst' after serious eye injury
Hannah Thomas, who ran against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Grayndler at the May election, suffered a serious eye injury at a protest early on June 27, when she was arrested alongside four others. The demonstrators gathered outside SEC Plating, a Belmore business they say supplies services for F-35 jets used by the Israeli Defence Forces.
The arrests prompted serious concerns among legal experts after video taken at the scene appeared to contradict key claims by police after the protests, and showed officers failing to explain what laws they were relying on to break up the demonstration.
In her first interview since the arrests, Thomas said she has been warned that she will probably never regain full vision following the incident.
'I don't think there is any chance of it going back to what it was, and I've been told very clearly to be prepared for the worst-case scenario which is full vision loss in the right eye,' she said.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can also reveal Thomas has been charged using a rarely cited emergency anti-riot power introduced after the 2005 Cronulla riots to deal with 'large-scale public disorder' which requires sign-off by senior police.
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Court documents reveal that, unlike the four others arrested at the demonstration, Thomas was charged under an emergency power known as part 6a, which requires authorisation by an assistant commissioner or higher.
The extraordinary powers, which police last threatened to invoke after demonstrations at the Sydney Opera House in 2023, give officers the ability to stop and search vehicles, detain people and disperse crowds.
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