Sydney BLM protest: Police court action ‘independent of Mick Fuller comments’
A senior police officer has told the Supreme Court she attempted to stop an upcoming Black Lives Matter rally independently of her boss’s comments on radio 2GB that he wanted to shut the gathering down.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Selfishness goes viral at Black Lives Matter marches
- ‘Privileged’ Meghan Markle has no idea on grim race reality
A senior police officer says she independently decided to try and stop a Black Lives Matter rally despite her boss earlier saying on radio he wanted it shut down, a court has been told.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller’s lawyers have taken the organisers of the rally scheduled for Tuesday in Sydney’s CBD to the Supreme Court, wanting to de-authorise the public assembly so officers can move on and arrest people if they block streets or crowd together.
The court was told Mr Fuller had appeared on 2GB last Monday and told host Ben Fordham on air he had instructed his team to launch legal action against the rally’s organisers.
But lawyers for the organisers argued the interview took place three hours before police had met with rally leader Padraic Gibson and the commissioner or a delegate had been required to have the meeting so the protesters could push their case.
In court on Friday, Assistant Commissioner Stacey Maloney said she acted independently when she formed the view to oppose the rally last Monday after Mr Fuller’s strong words on 2GB.
“I didn’t hear the Ben Fordham interview personally, I still haven’t heard it to this day … it was all over the news … he was suggesting he wanted to take the matter to the Supreme Court,” she said.
“It could have been late morning (when I heard that) but, at the end of the day, I thought that was the commissioner’s personal view – it didn’t deter me (from acting).”
In an affidavit tendered to the court, Ms Moloney said Mr Gibson emailed information about the protest to police at 9.20am before meeting a chief inspector at The Rocks police station around 10.30am.
Ms Moloney said she read briefing notes from the meeting before making an application for a Supreme Court order to prohibit the public assembly organised by Mr Gibson.
“At the time of making this application, I have read and taken into consideration … any representations made by the defendant,” she said.
“People tend to march in close groups — that marching is often accompanied by chanting and the consequent oral discharge of saliva,” she said.
“To my understanding, that would give rise to an increased risk of transmission of the virus.”
The case will continue into Friday afternoon but Justice Mark Lerace has said he will hand down his decision on whether to de-authorise the assembly on Saturday afternoon.
WHAT IS THE RALLY ABOUT?
Mr Gibson is organising the rally on behalf of the family of Mr Dungay, who died in 2015 after NSW Corrective Services officers stormed his Long Bay cell and restrained him.
The NSW Coroner cleared the five guards of wrongdoing sparking anger from the dead man’s family and supporters.
The nephew of Mr Dungay, Paul Silva, said their right to demonstrate was linked to their traditional ownership of the land.
“No matter what a court says, at the end of the day this is Aboriginal land and nothing should be able to stop us from protesting,” he said.
Mr Silva denounced comments by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who told 2GB there should be no “special rule” or “ticket” for protests to breach the coronavirus restrictions on gatherings.
“My response to that, as an Aboriginal person and a family member of an Aboriginal person killed in custody, is the special rule and ticket not to obey the law goes to police and Corrective Services in Australia,” he said.
Mr Silva said his family had been marching for “justice” for his uncle for years and wouldn’t give up.
“The whole world has seen video footage of him being held down and begging for his life continuously,” he said.
“Me and my family have fought for the last five years.”
‘LEFT-WING ACTIVISTS’ BEHIND SYDNEY BLM
The organisers of Sydney’s Black Lives Matter movement include radical left-wing activists who also protest against strip searches, transgender oppression and believe the police are an “institution of the capitalist state”.
Researcher and PhD student Paddy Gibson is leading the fight to hold the July 28 march.
“People involved in the BLM movement from the start have been pretty left wing,” Mr Gibson, 38, a father of two, said on Thursday.
“It’s demonstrating against the police and the prison system, it’s a radical movement.”
Police want to halt the protest because of the danger of thousands of people spreading COVID-19.
Supporters of left-wing causes including the Palestine Action Group Sydney, Justice Action and trade union rights have been lining up alongside the grieving relatives of Aboriginal man Mr Dungay, 26, who died in Long Bay Jail after telling officers restraining him that he couldn’t breathe, and Tane Chatfield, 22, who was found hanging in his cell in Tamworth jail in 2017.
None of those organisers spoken to by The Daily Telegraph knew about the overseas student who on June 10 registered the name Black Lives Matter Australia on the Australian Business Register. Mercy Emma Jeptoo Boit obtained her student visa in 2015 and lives in a Silverwater apartment. She refused to comment yesterday.
Socialist Alliance and Green Left activist Raul Bassi, who organised the Stop All Black Deaths in Custody rally in Sydney that went ahead last month, said he didn’t care who had registered the name.
“So take me to court for using those words,” Mr Bassi, who arrived in Sydney from Argentina 37 years ago, said.
“Yes I’m an activist, I’m a socialist. I want that people don’t go hungry, I want the people to have houses, I’m a believer of the health system.”
Mr Bassi works at Indigenous Social Justice Association Sydney.
Another protester, Rachel Evans of Green Left, who said she was a “victim of strip searches”, said the protests fostered a sense of solidarity and that is what “Scott Morrison and the police and the screws want to break down”.
Mr Gibson is co-editor of Solidarity Magazine which states on its website that: “Parliament, the army, the police and the courts are institutions of the capitalist state”.
He is senior researcher at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney and his PhD study is based on the “relationship between the Australian labour movement and struggles for Aboriginal rights between WWI and WWII, with a particular focus on the Communist Party of Australia”.
Mr Gibson said the protest was not any more dangerous than other activity, including markets, sporting events and shopping centres, and protesters would be socially-distancing, wearing masks and using hand sanitiser.