Black Lives Matter: Police pepper spray breakaway protesters
Thousands of protesters joined the Black Lives Matters rally in Sydney yesterday, with the CBD march peaceful until a breakaway group abused police. After the protest received last-minute legal ruling to go ahead, police and the NSW government will now look at ways to prevent further mass gatherings during pandemics.
National
Don't miss out on the headlines from National. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Protesters lodge last-minute appeal to overturn rally ban
- ‘Don’t snitch’, activists tell kids ahead of protest
Wearing masks and chanting “I can’t breathe”, thousands of protesters gathered in Sydney yesterday for a largely peaceful Black Lives Matter rally, echoing rallies around the world.
Some stopped at the corner of Bathurst and Castlereagh streets to take a knee for black deaths in custody, while others punched their fists in the air in memory of George Floyd, who died in the custody of Minneapolis police.
Police and organisers estimated the crowd at between 15,000 and 20,000. Protest leader Paul Silver, 22, described the rally as the largest he had seen in Australia.
“There’s good support for our cause from Australians from all walks of life; indigenous and non-Indigenous are seeing there’s no justice for our people,” Mr Silver said.
“Australians have had enough of governments not keeping police and corrections officers accountable for deaths in custody.”
While the march itself was a peaceful affair, a confrontation erupted after the crowd dispersed at sundown, with a small group of young and highly charged protesters bashing on a riot squad car and screaming at police.
Police formed a line to force the group into Central station in a bid to finally end the rally, herding them towards platforms and to trains.
Activist Danny Lim was in the crowd clutching one of his now infamous signs.
One placard took aim at Rio Tinto after the mining company destroyed a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site as part of an expansion project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia late last month.
“Blow up the system not Aboriginal heritage sites,” the placard read.
It was impossible to adhere to social distancing, with thousands of people packed into George St and around Town Hall square.
But people walked around handing out surgical masks and plastic gloves to the crowd. One woman stood on the side of Bathurst St as the rally made its way down to Belmore Park squirting a bottle of hand sanitiser into protesters’ hands.
Just before the rally was about to start, the police encouraged people in groups of 10 to move into Town Hall square and to ease pressure on the heaving crowd.
As thousands of people with Black Lives Matter signs walked through the streets, they chanted “they say accident, we say murder”, “I can’t breathe” and “George Floyd”.
At least 15 police accompanied the front of the march, which swelled from around 12,000 protesters to an estimated 20,000 by the time it reached Belmore Park, including numerous police indigenous liaison officers.
Police moved quickly to quell any violence, moving on a man who had been holding up cardboard sign with the words “black white” crossed out and words “all lives matter” underneath.
Among those who attended was former Stop All Black Deaths In Custody protest organiser Raul Bassi, who said he could not stay silent about the 432 indigenous deaths in custody since the findings of a royal commission into the issue were released in 1991.
“I have been involved in the Aboriginal struggle for too many years not to march,” he said.
The protest organiser claims he had fruitful discussion with Sydney City Police all week about the terms of the rally, which were finally mutually agreed on Thursday night.
According to Mr Bassi, the only compromise rally organisers could not accommodate was a request to bring the march forward from 3pm to noon because Aboriginal elders from Kempsey and Newcastle had already booked coaches.
“I talk to the police, who I know well, and we negotiated all week,” he said.
“The Sydney City Police sent me their final terms on Thursday night and I sent an email back agreeing to them.
“The problem has never been with Sydney City Police, we were all in agreement with the terms of the rally.”
In response to concerns protesters could spread COVID-19, Mr Bassi said organisers had arranged for marshalls to hand out masks and hand sanitiser.
The rally comes amid an about-face from Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who initially advised protesters to be “COVID-safe”.
By Friday night, amid criticism of the rally by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, the Premier had taken a different stance, describing the planned rally as “flagrant disregard of the health rules”.
As the march snaked its way down the closed Castlereagh St towards Belmore Park, Aboriginal activist Gwenda Stanley was at the front, leading the chant of “no justice, no peace; no racist police”.
“We are here for justice,” Ms Stanley said. “There’s too many coppers and not enough justice. We want the cases of all Aboriginal deaths in custody reinvestigated.”
COPS TO PUSH FOR COVID RALLY BAN
Police and the NSW government will seek to ban mass protests during the pandemic, after the Court of Appeal quashed a police ban on yesterday’s Black Lives Matter march in Sydney.
Up to 20,000 marched peacefully and legally through the city streets to kneel in Belmore Park after frantic legal argument saw the ban overturned just 12 minutes before the rally’s scheduled start.
The matter was taken to the Supreme Court by NSW Police chief Michael Fuller on Friday after Premier Gladys Berejiklian bowed to pressure from her colleagues to stop the event.
While the Premier never formally endorsed the rally, she had said earlier that she did not want to take away the right of people to demonstrate or their ability to protest, and also advised those planning to march to be “COVID-safe”.
It is also understood police intelligence suggested the rally would occur anyway, with up to three days of riots following, with the event potentially open to being hijacked by “communists, anarchists and opportunists”.
However, public condemnation of the intended rally by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, federal Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy and NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet left the Premier little option but to seek a ban.
After the Supreme Court banned the rally on Friday, protesters took the case to the NSW Court of Appeal.
The argument hinged on whether police had agreed to modifications to a document which outlined the increased size of the protests.
Michael Spartalis, barrister for the Commissioner of Police, told the court “there was no agreement to that proposal” but the court disagreed, ordering it a “legal assembly”.
It is understood Police Minister David Elliott will hold talks with Mr Fuller on “addressing the issues” with a view to making it more difficult for organisers to hold any mass rally during a pandemic.
Mr Elliott, who spent yesterday afternoon watching the event with senior police at the Sydney Police Centre, accused Greens MLC David Shoebridge, who worked with organisers on the appeal, of “inciting violence” while also putting the health and welfare of the community at risk.
“As honourable as the cause may be, the actual protest is risking the health and welfare of the community,” Mr Elliott said.
“They should have delayed it. If they want to do it, that’s fine, but even veterans have had to delay Anzac Day commemorations until Remembrance Day. If veterans have been forced to defer annual reunions, I just don’t know why commonsense didn’t prevail.”
Mr Shoebridge said the attempted ban was “ham-fisted”.
“The organisers had always been seeking a co-operative peaceful event with respect for social distancing,” he said. “The last-minute intervention from the politicians came close to turning a peaceful rally into another case of police violence.”
Originally published as Black Lives Matter: Police pepper spray breakaway protesters
Newspoll: Coalition takes lead over Labor
The Coalition now leads Labor on a two-party-preferred basis for the first time since the May 2022 election in a boost for Peter Dutton as Anthony Albanese’s approval ratings hit a new low.
Australia’s new border boss revealed
An Afghanistan veteran and defence intelligence chief has been appointed as the new boss of the Border Force.