Islamic flags waved at university away from peaceful protests

A crowd of around 100 people – mostly men – marched up the main avenue at the University of Sydney on Friday, waving black and white flags of Islam.

Pro-Palestine encampment protesters gather at the University of Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

A crowd of around 100 people – mostly men – marched up the main avenue at the University of Sydney on Friday, waving black and white flags of Islam.

The flags – specifically the black background with white script – appear to resemble flags previously associated with Islamist extremism.

A freelance photographer, who wanted to remain anonymous, told The Australian that the contingent marched up campus around 2pm on Friday.

This was hours after the scheduled protest and counter-protest where pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters at the encampment faced off against each other in a tense but overall peaceful demonstration on Friday morning.

“The march started down the old teacher’s college,” the freelance photographer said. “What they did was they went and prayed there in the prayer room, and then they all marched out and back up to the camp.”

“It was loud but it wasn’t violent, they were just chanting.”

A University of Sydney spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the images.

“We can confirm these images are from today on campus, as part of a peaceful procession,” they said.

However, Gamel Kheir, secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, told The Australian “it’s just an Islamic flag – before we had the crescent, that was the symbol of Islam. Like the cross was the symbol of Christianity and the Star of David was the symbol of Judaism.

“The extreme right wing have tried to monopolise that flag but it’d be unfair to say that carrying that flag is a far right wing Islamic symbol.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin told The Australian the procession was “the latest attempt to turn our streets and public spaces into places of conflict and division”.

“It is an attempt to intimidate the public and the university into silence and obedience,” he said. “Australians are blessed to live in a country free from war and conflict.

“We don’t want battle cries and religious oaths chanted on our streets. The anti-Israel movement has always attracted the most extreme elements of society because it is founded in bigotry, racial supremacism and steeped in old conspiracies about Jewish greed and power. It is troubling but entirely unsurprising to see this latest escalation.“

This came after a tense but largely peaceful protest and counter-protest of pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis on campus.

Hundreds gathered at the university’s iconic quadrangle that morning – with tents and tarpaulins set up over the lawns – festooned with banners, Palestinian flags, and chants of “from the river to the sea”.

Members of the Jewish community gathered at the University of Sydney to counter a pro-Palestine encampment protest. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

Many pro-Israel counter-protesters wore yellow shirts that read “stop hate, mate”. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

Down the other end of Eastern Avenue, pro-Israeli protesters also gathered in their hundreds, although the crowd was smaller than the pro-Palestinian one. Many wore yellow shirts that read “stop hate, mate”, and were draped in Australian and Israeli flags.

University security, out in large numbers, kept the two factions separate such that they were not within sight or earshot of each other.

It followed a similar protest and counter protest on the University of Melbourne campus on Thursday.

Tensions started to build when some pro-Israeli protesters approached the pro-Palestine encampment on campus to heckle them. The pro-Palestinian protesters broke off and linked hands, making a chain to stand against them.

“Zionists out of campus, Israel out of Palestine,” the people in the chain chanted.

Some also chanted for “intifada”.

In one close-quarters confrontation, one man holding a Palestinian flag pointed toward pro-Israeli protesters and yelled, “Israel allied with the Nazis!”

When pro-Palestine protest marshals asked him to move backwards, he appeared to fall to the ground and crawl towards the pro-Israel contingent while protest organisers tried to stop him.