Greens leader Larissa Waters has described clashes between protesters and police last night as “state-sanctioned violence”, blaming Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for inciting the conflict after visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Australia.
“They should never have invited the head of a state committing a genocide, to our shores,” Waters told journalists at Parliament House in Canberra.
“The footage coming out of Sydney last night is absolutely horrific. Peaceful protesters being assaulted, being punched, men in prayer being pulled up off the ground as they pray and thrown aside by police is appalling. This is state-sanctioned violence. You’ve now got more chance of being arrested for being a peaceful protester than you do for inciting a genocide.”
“[NSW] Premier [Chris] Minns and the prime minister bear the responsibility for creating the conditions that has led to this appalling police violence. This violence now needs to be independently investigated. Those protest rights must be restored and respected, and President Herzog should not set foot anywhere near federal parliament when he’s here in Canberra tomorrow.”
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, a Muslim woman, said the police action at the protest was “abhorrent”, “disgraceful”, “completely unnecessary and completely unjustified”. Faruqi said she was proud to speak at the protest and that it was peaceful.
“The protesters were not violent. The police [response] was. The violence perpetrated by the police on the people of NSW last night has been enabled and emboldened by a premier who has cracked down on our democratic right to protest in such draconian and authoritarian ways, leading us down the path to fascism,” Faruqi said.
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