The policing of dissent in NSW represents a worrying trend

Pro-Palestine rally in Hyde Park, Sydney, 15 October, 2023. Photo courtesy: Robbie Mason.

The policing of dissent in NSW appears to be escalating following an outburst of public support for Palestine in the state’s harbourside capital. Legal Observers NSW, a grassroots collective that monitors police activity at rallies and facilitates legal aid for activists, has accused NSW Police of anti-social behaviour and racial profiling at a Palestine rally in Hyde Park, Sydney, on Sunday 15 October.

In a social media post last Wednesday, the group recorded that police pulled over vehicles displaying Palestinian flags in the CBD and demanded their removal, using minor infringements as pretexts for the traffic stops. Officers and horses also surrounded groups of people praying. At one point, at least 15 police officers and 4 mounted officers were closely monitoring a group of attendees praying.

Prior to that Sunday rally, NSW authorities had adopted a hard-line stance on Palestinian protest. NSW Premier Chris Minns had stated that Palestine supporters were “not peaceful” and promised to prevent further protest. NSW Police, meanwhile, established Operation Shelter to increase surveillance of protest activities – the third strikeforce announced in the last 2 years that targets protests in NSW. They also threatened to use special police powers, first introduced after the 2005 Cronulla race riots, to ensure public safety.

Over 1000 police were present across the city that Sunday afternoon as part of a mass operation. There were no arrests that day and no injuries reported.

Now, frustration is simmering among activists who see federal government inaction and silence on the Palestinian plight as complicity in ethnic cleansing and opposition to the right to protest as active obstruction.

Emad Al Hatu, a Palestinian living in Sydney, said that he feels his voice is being stifled. He labelled the silencing of political dissent “truly frightening”, warning that antagonistic government rhetoric leads to backlash for Palestinian communities.

“This pattern led to a 6 year old [Palestinian-American] being killed in Chicago [in a racially-motivated attack]. Yes, it’s individuals acting this way, but it’s government rhetoric that frames their views.”

Sue Higginson, a Greens member of the NSW Legislative Council, told No Filter that recent attempts to stifle pro-Palestinian dissent were “a low point for the NSW Government”.  

“The role of police is to keep people safe, not decide who can protest and who cannot.”

Police overreach in protest supervision has plagued activist spaces in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian authorities attempted to silence political protest and expand ASIO’s capabilities under the guise of public health. For activists, the sight of phalanxes of police officers and horses outnumbering protestors at street demonstrations became expected; the clip-clop of the Mounted Unit and the barking of dogs became white noise.

In one case, in September 2020, riot police vehicles pulled up at the University of Sydney. Police subsequently broke up an informal internal student-activist meeting of less than 20 people, citing the presence of a megaphone as “reasonable suspicion” that students intended to flout COVID safety laws. In April 2021, Amnesty International released a report detailing the disproportionate and excessive use of force by NSW police to enact COVID-19 regulations and shut down protests.

Police have sent Sydney activists intimidating letters and visited their homes, warning them against further participation in rallies, despite those individuals often having no direct involvement in the protest activities under police scrutiny at the time. Police making pre-rally visits to the homes of key organisers is nothing new, but there’s popular sentiment among activists that the frequency of such visits has spiked following nationwide lockdowns.

Sue Higginson told No Filter, “we have seen alarming acts by the NSW Police, particularly in regard to climate protesters in recent years. Last year NSW Police raided a climate activist camp on private land and arrested and terrified people who were simply camping.”

In a targeted assault on the state’s climate movement, the former NSW government passed legislation in April 2022 imposing a $22,000 fine or 2 year maximum prison sentence for any protestor who damages major roads and infrastructure or disrupts economic activity.

Lydia Shelly, Vice President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, expressed concern that protestors have become “the New Age boogeymen”.

“They’re not seen as people who are trying desperately hard to raise national consciousness of a tragedy or social justice issue. They’re now seen pre-emptively as a criminal, even before there is any mention of any criminal conduct.”

The normalisation of heavy-handed policing appears to have emboldened officers, allowing the already-toxic culture within the force, a headline magnet in of itself, to proliferate. In one incident recorded by Legal Observers NSW on Sunday, police confiscated “know your rights” flyers, customarily handed out by volunteers at rallies, during a car search. Hostile officers ridiculed the leaflet and the legal observers present.

The coordinated effort by the NSW Labor government and police to curb pro-Palestinian protest has had little impact, however. Roughly 6000 people turned up to show support at the Sunday rally on Sunday 15 October. The incident-free protest did not include a street demonstration. But the rally’s organisers, the Palestine Action Group, received clearance for a march last Saturday, thanks to the peaceful crowd and large turn-out on the Sunday prior.

20,000 people attended.

With rallies spreading like wildfire across the country, there appear few signs that momentum is faltering.

Emad Al Hatu pledged that he will not stop advocating for Palestinian freedom and the right to protest and criticise governments, citing the treatment of Julian Assange as an example of what the future holds.

“I will not stop. I will lobby others and show how their freedoms are being removed in today’s climate,” he said.

“Together we will stop the slide towards totalitarianism.”

Lydia Shelly from the NSW Council for Civil Liberties said that lawyers, civil liberties groups and human rights organisations have “put NSW Police on notice”.

“A line in the sand has been drawn,” she declared.