We confirm our support for the Palestine Action Group’s rally on Sunday 15 October calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine this Sunday in Sydney’s Hyde Park.
We reject the attempts by NSW Police and the NSW Government to prevent the Palestinian community and their supporters from exercising the right to engage in peaceful protest. These shameful attempts to silence those calling attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza set a chilling precedent for freedom of speech and threaten the right to protest in this State.
Palestinian and Jewish communities are suffering. All communities have the right to safety as they gather and grieve together and they have the right to engage in peaceful political protest together. This is one of the core tenets of our democracy and must be protected.
Everyone in this State has the right to gather peacefully to demonstrate their views, regardless of their background or political persuasion. They do not need police permission to peacefully assemble and protest on public land – in spite of this Government’s bad faith statements to the contrary. They certainly shouldn’t be subjected to threats by the police that attempt to intimidate people into not protesting. The announcement that the NSW Police will be granted extraordinary powers to search protestors without reasonable cause is alarming and draconian.
Already, too many lives, so many of them civilians, have been lost. With UN experts condemning the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza as “collective punishment” in breach of international law and food, water, and electricity supplies in Gaza running dangerously low, we know the suffering will only continue.
War is never the answer. The Australian Government must work to de-escalate the situation, and call for an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza. To end the cycle of violence, the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine must end.
We mourn the loss of life. We stand in solidarity with the movement for a free Palestine. We are unanimous in our view that there is no place anywhere for anti-semitism, Islamophobia, racism, or discrimination.
Here in NSW and around the world, we will always support the right for people to engage in collective action and peaceful protest.
Dr Mehreen Faruqi
Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Senator for NSW
Jenny Leong
Greens NSW Human Rights spokesperson
Sue Higginson
Greens NSW Justice spokesperson
