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© (Thomson Reuters 2023.Australian police consider special search powers ahead of pro-Palestinian protest
By Lewis Jackson SYDNEY©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
43 Comments
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TokyoLiving
Hunt those terrorists..
EvilBuddha
Why should Australian citizens take sides on the issues between Israel and Hamas, where both sides have been at fault over the years but one side clearly provoked the other by targeting civilians in the last one week?
That's because people belonging to one particular community have more loyalty to their religion than to their nation. And with 1.8 billion people cheering on or at the very least justifying what happened last week, supported by the liberal hypocrites in the West, it’s difficult not to have sympathy for the other side.
Liberals who are all in favor of free speech under normal circumstances will soon realize that there are limits to their hypocrisy.
RichardPearce
The notion that antiracism activists (and that is what this rally is about, opposing racism so extreme it is defined as a Crime Against Humanity) are fueled by racism is ridiculous, but unlike the claims that the Israeli regime is not violating the ICSPCA, not falsifiable by the presentation of facts.
Like Trump using the claim that the documentation of Obama's birth were fake to allow people motivated to oppose Obama a way around the facts, using an illogical lie to allow a counterfactual lie to survive its debunking is an old gambit, that only works when the illogical one is treated as credible.
Keepyer Internetpoints
Agreed. Police seeking special search and seizure powers ahead of "certain" protests are terrorists.
Ricky Kaminski13
The hideous and heinous crimes committed by these savages is almost beyond comprehension. What sort of an animal can behead a baby? Anyone that thinks its fine to throw any form of bad will or condemnation at Israel right now seriously needs their own head examined. The crowds in Sydney the other day and the garbage that they were chanting was disgusting. The police should go hard on these lunatics.
nandakandamanda
Hamas are so off the rails that they even had a fatwa issued against them back in March. Pity the Palestinians forced to serve them.
Raw Beer
The baby beheading is fake news, put out there to help justify what Israel is planning to do to the citizens of Gaza.
Would they also consider doing that to attendees at a pro-Israeli or pro-Ukrainian rally?
Jimizo
Massive? How many people are you talking about here?
Where are you getting this from?
bass4funk
More than 100
Japantime
Unfortunately due to history no one is allowed to criticize Israel. It is a very touchy subject. I thought free speech was allowed in democratic countries.
wallace
Attacks against Jews and Jewish businesses are happening in many European cities and must not be tolerated.
wallace
I have criticised the policies of Israel many times on this forum.
JJE
It's typical of elements of the media this week - casually go along with the Israeli-western government narrative that baselessly conflates the Palestinian population with terrorists, legitimate criticism of Israel government policy as anti-Semitic, and pro-peace demonstrators as violence-prone and pro-Hamas. The Palestinian flag - that's offensive too, we'll ban that while we're at it.
Western governments are losing touch with reality, the right to peaceful protest and assembly and it's looking like they are starting to believe their own propaganda about this and many topics.
I wonder how long till they start arresting people for holding blank pieces of paper. The irony.
Fighto!
Last time I checked the news, people at those peaceful rallies were not racially vilifying and threatening others. Do you have any evidence they were?
A significant number at the last pro-Palestinian rally on the steps of the Sydney Opera House were chanting "gas the Jews". (Google it for the footage). One man was arrested separately for threatening to kill Jewish children. Three men arrested today for storming the Sydney Jewish museum and giving Hitler salutes.
So there is no equivalence between a peaceful rally and a hateful, dangerous one.
Fighto!
Hysterical nonsense.
Nowhere in this story is there any evidence citizens right to peaceful protest is being curtailed.
If they come to commit crimes like racial vilification and threats of violence - different story.
JJE
The group behind the Sunday protest has condemned the actions of a “tiny fringe” of 20 “vile anti-Semitic attendees” who were not connected to the rally. “From our observations this occurred for less than one minute and was not an ongoing chant. They were quickly condemned for their chants and asked to leave,” Palestine Action Group Sydney wrote on social media. “Longstanding Palestinian organisers and activists, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim elders attending the protest were disgusted and deplored by the action - this is not what our movement stands for.” Let those words sink in for a second - not connected to the rally.
Bellevue Hill is a long way from the Sydney CBD where one man was arrested over verbal threats about a flag four counts and charged with stalk/intimidate intending to cause fear on a different day - again not connected to the rally in any way.
The three clowns outside the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst road was yesterday - yet again, NOT connected to the rally.
A sneaky attempt to surreptitiously conflate these activities with peaceful protest.
JJE
I watched the footage - it was overall peaceful, a few knuckleheads with flares, a very small minority who were shouted out and typical NSW police ineptness.
The inconvenient truth is the message of the rally: Free Palestine - which was spelt out with candles and was the main chant.
JJE
Here are the facts as they stand:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-13/nsw-sydney-rally-extraordinary-powers-weekend-rally/102972746
NSW police have a long and proud tradition of mismanaging peaceful protests.
yipyip
New South Wales (NSW) state police said they had sought legal advice about special powers not used since race riots in 2005 that allow police to search and demand identities without cause of those attending the rally in Sydney.
Please use those powers and ask questions concerning its legality later.
yipyip
Come on.
The murdering of civilians, raping women next to their dead friends, kidnapping the elderly and the disabled wasn't enough?
NotThe One
Actually, the Israeli settlers occupying Palestinian lands are currently the terrorist. Settlers are riding through Gaza shooting random Palestinians while the Palestinians are rescuing victims of Israel's phosphorus bombings and shooting at random people at Palestinian funerals.
The terrorism and abuse from illegal settlers was going on before Hamas' attack
And
Various verifiable and credible sources.......
This report, entitled “Pulling the trigger is the first resort: Palestinians killed by Israeli army and settlers in 2022”, presents a detailed account of the killings of Palestinians perpetrated by Israeli forces, along with the associated contexts, gathered from both field and office research. It contains testimonies indicating that Israel has frequently acted with a systematic will to disregard the most essential right found in all human rights charters, i.e. the right to life.
yipyip
Thanks for the clarification.
The global news sources, and Hamas itself has been telling it the other way around the past few days.
And those settlers who Israel physically removed from Gaza over a decade ago snuck back in and decided that out of all places they could live in Israel, they just had to return to Gaza and settle there, where, what, they have been living peacefully among the Palestinian Arabs? And then one day those settlers decided to go on a shooting spree killing their "peaceful neighbors"?
Yeh.
JJE
It happened today (Friday morning) and was not connected to the rally which was held on a different day elsewhere. Nor did anyone "storm" the building.
Complete mischaracterization insinuated to smother the central pro-peace message of lawful dissent - that's what they really want stomped out.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/13/nazi-salute-arrest-sydney-jewish-museum-men
konjo4u
The plight of refugees anywhere needs a peaceful solution. Neither side in this war seems to understand that.
yipyip
Of course, this issue needs to be discussed. But it is not a priority now.
It's time for Israel to eliminate the murderers, terrorists, and their supporters.
If you are keeping a rocket in your kitchen to be used to shoot at Israeli citizens, and you have your family over for dinner, sorry about any missiles that might be raining down through your roof interrupting dessert.
Onlooker
The world leaders should have been more careful in expressing their support for Israel's flight against terrorism, that is, Hamas attack. Knowing that Hamas has been exploiting Palestinian people's grievances emanating from Israel's occupation and its control of their lives, the leaders should have spoken in a more nuanced manner so as to limit the issue to the Israel-Palestine relations/conflict. This luck of specificity has given some groups with their own agenda opportunities to tweak the narrative in their favor like the case of anti semitism in this article. To express pro-Palestine sentiments, I don't need neo Nazis and white supremacy platform.
Jim
All these rally and protest on foreign soil should be banned and stopped at once because it will only bring further destruction and disruptions when supporters on Palestine and Israel take to the streets. They are free to go and protest on the streets back in Palestine and Israel but foreign countries should just ban these types of protests immediately!
Zaphod
Jimizo
Dont know what to expect in Sydney, but tens of thousands in London and Paris. Hundreds of thousands in Amman. Look at the videos.
Zaphod
Raw Beer
I would say a pro-Israel rally is a lot safer for any counter protesters.
That said, they are on record to throw out all restraints when it is an anti mRNA-vaccine rally. These things are never equal.
CuteUsagi
Um, I am Jewish and I am allowed to criticize Israel. Please do not categorize and use the term, NO ONE IS.
Attilathehungry
Embarrassing for a supposedly enlightened democracy like Australia that there are so many anti-Semites who crawl out of the sewers on occasion. However, they ARE free to express themselves, the police need no extra powers. The most important power is that of public opinion. Name and shame anyone who attended such a rally and let them suffer the consequences.
As for Gaza, I dont seem to remember Israel doing anything but pull OUT of Gaza about 15 years ago. Since then, the Gazans have been playing footsie with Hamas, letting the cancer in their midst grow and prosper. Now sadly, they will have to pay the price.
kurisupisu
So, now it is becoming a crime to state a view or to assemble to protest?
No proof of identity?
Arrestable offense
Said something the police found ‘offensive’?
Arrestable offense
Made an untoward gesture?
Arrestable offence
And it will go on and the list will get longer…
Mr Kipling
Ricky...
Never happened. But you fell for it. Photos have been found to be AI generated but you won't be reading about that in your news feeds. They got their BS out and that is the news.
Peter14
Protests in Australia and European cities to protest against Israel, are showing the tide is slowly turning from whole hearted support of a people that faced extermination at the hands of Nazi's in WWII in Europe, to one of exhausted patience in their criminal handling of the two state solution, and the fact successive Israeli governments have not just shelved the idea but buried it.
The Idea being Israel is getting away with land confiscation and new settlement building and expansion, so there is no need to allow the creation of a state for Palestinians, as soon all their land will be Jewish owned and controlled.
Nobody supports Hamas brutal murder of civilians in this latest uprising against Israeli crimes against Palestinians, but neither are they supportive of Israel bringing total devastation to Gaza and its civilian population. In the end the leaders of Israel's government do not care what people around the world think of their crimes against Palestinian civilians, they believe they have every right to destroy all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. If they thought they could get away with ethnic cleansing and genocide, I feel sure Netanyahu would authorize it in an instant. They just plan on doing it the slow way.
The destruction of Gaza will in the end be paid for by International funds donated to rebuild destroyed infrastructure, hospitals, police stations, schools, shops and apartment buildings.
Israel is hoping for a large exodus of people to reduce the population of the Gaza prison. With their homes and livelyhoods destroyed many will have no choice. But the question will be, where will the go to, and will they be allowed to return once rebuilding has begun.
This really needs to be settled, two equal states, equal rights and a peace treaty.
u_s__reamer
Worldwide protests against the war crimes already committed (with many more expected) by Israel's right-wing government are sure to grow bigger and more vocal and even violent on both sides (between Muslims and Jews living outside the Middle East). Sympathy for Israelis will predictably wane as the death toll in Gaza mounts. 10,000 dead - men, women and children may be a conservative estimate based on the usual disproportionate loss of life on the Arab side of the scales.
桜川雪
Why not just remove and arrest those advocating violence? Or, on the other hand, just reject all protest permits until cooler heads prevail on all sides (this would include Ukrainian war protests too).
NotThe One
It looks like someone does not know what they are talking about!
Ah.......yeah!
Bordeaux
Shows how much you know!
Uh.....no!
Yrral
If you have 1 percent of Muslim to that are willing avenge ,what is going on in Palestine ,you talking about 1 million Muslim,this is why revenge should never be your objective,the US is getting cold feets about Israel attack on Gaza Google Kirby Gaza
Black Sabbath
According to the article, the Palestine Action Group Sydney condemned and expelled the trogs who showed up to their rally and chanted "Gas the Jews". So that's good.
But, on Oct 9, I assume these are same guys: "Hundreds of Australians have marched in solidarity with Palestinians after the Israeli government formally declared war against Hamas in response to its surprise attack." https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/09/pro-palestinian-rally-in-sydney-calls-for-australia-to-drop-support-for-israel
Oct 9. Two days after the attack. You gotta squint real hard not to see that as solidarity with Hammas.
So, yeah, I'd say the police have legitimate concern here.
As an American, I would object to barring these people from protesting. But, in the US, we protect our First Amendment rights about as much as possible. Which I favor. Because I often find myself in voicing unpopular postions, and we can say just about anything in the public sqaure, so long as is doesn't incite immediate violence.
How does it work in Australia?
TaiwanIsNotChina
Uh, the power of a democracy is to allow people to express their stupid/evil positions.
Or alternatively don't engage in the Human Flesh Search Engine nonsense China engages in and just let ijits be ijits.
Yrral
What in the hell,was the people of Israel that supported Bibi, thinking, it obviously they were not thinking of the past hell,he has brought them,now they are reaping what they sowed with Bibi