Sydney: Australian police allegedly used violence against protesters in Sydney during a demonstration held against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday, February 9.
Several protesters claimed they were attacked, intimidated, and punched by the police during the rally held in Sydney’s Central Business District.
Videos of the protest show police charging at protesters and using force to disperse the demonstrators, with protesters saying pepper spray was also used.
Speaking to the media, opposition MP from the Greens, Abigail Boyd, said that she was punched by the police during the clash.
She additionally stated officers assaulted a group of around 12 Muslim men while they were praying peacefully.
“I don’t understand how that is a proportionate response to anything. I was not doing the wrong thing. Nor was anybody around me. They then went in and grabbed these people who were praying. You can’t get anything more peaceful than prayer. Picking them up and just throwing them on the ground again,” Boyd told reporters.
Protesters were denied permission
The police action came after the protesters were prohibited from holding a demonstration at the Town Hall. A member of the Palestine Action Group said it was one of the “worst” cases of violence in recent years.
“We should have had the right to march,” Josh Lees from Palestine Action Group said, adding that “all of this could have been avoided” if the authorities had allowed them to march.
The rally organisers had lost the bid to overturn police powers restricting their right to demonstrate hours before the protest.
Police commissioner defends officers’ action
Meanwhile, the NSW Police Commissioner said the officers showed “remarkable restraint” during the altercation, and that they “did what they needed to do.”
According to the NSW police statement, 27 people have been arrested. “Paramedics treated a number of participants after OC spray was deployed,” the statement read.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told Channel 9 that the authorities were “put in an impossible situation last night,” urging the public “not to look at a 10-second clip without the fuller context.”
The Australian government had invited the Israeli President to visit after the Bondi Beach attack, targeted against the Jewish community, which killed fifteen people, including a ten-year-old girl, on December 14.
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